Understanding the Cobra Effect in Finance
Correction Concepts

Understanding the Cobra Effect in Finance

Corrected by Emir Baycan · on When Notes Fly · 28 July 2026 · View published page ↗

Financial risk management failures, from portfolio insurance to VaR, have amplified the crises they were built to prevent.

Factually incorrect

What was corrected

What the page claimed
The article's comparison table stated SVB passed a 2022 stress test, described VaR as a maximum-loss probability, and said SVB's HTM losses were invisible in public reporting.
What was corrected
Removed the SVB stress-test claim and dated its first supervisory test to 2024, corrected VaR to a threshold measure that does not bound tail losses, and clarified that SVB's HTM losses were disclosed in footnotes though excluded from headline capital.

Why this is better

These were verifiable factual errors about stress-test history, the definition of VaR, and financial-statement disclosure. Corrections use the Federal Reserve's SVB review and standard risk definitions rather than new unverified sources.

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