Nick Beams, 19 November 2020

(quote)
According to the FSB report, the crisis was set off when foreign
investors, primarily central banks, sold off almost $300 billion worth
of US Treasury debt. "Market dysfunction" was then exacerbated by
"substantial sales" of US Treasuries as speculative and
highly-leveraged trades, based on taking advantage of the difference
between the price of Treasury bonds and their futures, became
loss-making.

The large-scale unwinding of these trades, amounting to $90 billion
during March, was "likely one of the contributors to a short period of
extreme illiquidity on government bond markets," the report said.

The storm lasted for a "short period" not because of any
self-correction mechanism in financial markets but only as a result of
the massive intervention by the US Federal Reserve and other major
central banks that prevented a meltdown of the entire financial system
going far beyond what took place in 2008.
(/quote)
-- Cont'd at https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/19/fina-n19.html