that was my original assumption, after i'd read the 10k but before i'd talked to anyone here:
the bonds were real, just worthless.
but if fidelty is trading in the bonds, etc, they can't be worthless i suppose. it's still highly highly suspect that they have all these bonds and no interest.
you can have all the bonds in the world, venezuelan bonds, moon bonds, eurobonds, us government bonds, barry bonds, and the value will always be the same: the future value of the principle amount plus the NPV of the interest received.
that's why people buy bonds, to collect interest income, not to (supposedly) hypothecate the bonds to buy even more bonds...from which no interest is received