Analysis
Simon Gleeson: Between a rock and a hard place
The collapse of Lehman Brothers is a salutary reminder of the mechanics of financial firm collapse. Firms do not collapse when they run out of assets; they collapse when no-one will deal with them. According to the US Chapter 11 filing, Lehman was solvent when it filed. What made it file was counterparties' unwillingness to take on new exposures to it. In other words, no-one wanted to be the last man in. This is a function of the state of mind of market participants. And in these markets, state of mind is a fragile thing.
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