alt Hacker NewsOf course. But you have a bond buyer who can put their thumb on the scale, and has shown willingness to do so. That buyer also tried to interfere in (succeeded in interfering in) the business of law firms that worked for anti-Trump causes, has directly interfered in the renewable energy market to benefit its backers, etc.
What is to say that SpaceX and Oracle won't get these benefits? (Government buying bonds, trashing ratings agencies, leaning on banks to lend etc.)
Nothing obvious, I posit. So what is the value of a bond when a government is increasingly likely to manipulate the market for it?
And that is putting aside the second order of government interference: foreign governments putting their thumbs on the scale with their own investment funds and influenceable buyers, to buy influence over a government that favours these firms.
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Institutional bond traders are pretty sophisticated. They're aware of all the possibilities you mentioned, and pricing the bonds low anyway.
Nobody doubts all this. What the bond market is saying is that even with all of that, there are plenty of viable scenarios where bond holders aren't paid back.
After all, if you truly believe what you say with conviction, the sensible thing to do would be to buy up as many SpaceX bonds as you can if you think they're so undervalued.