From [1]: > The bank initially sold more than $20 billion of bonds, but did so at a $1.8 billion loss.

What we don't know is did they liquidate the positions that were more valuable in order to take a smaller loss, or positions that were most underwater? I'm guessing it's the former, which would mean they were in even worse shape with the unsold securities.

1: https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/03/the-real-reason-silic...

They absolutely did the former. Those are the securities which were marketable reasonably quickly, and they were planning to sell equity, too (another expensive but liquid asset).

Now that those assets are in the FDIC's hands, though, they can likely be unwound really slowly and without a ton of execution slippage, which would have otherwise happened if this were a firesale.