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The financial system is creating the same risk patterns that caused the 2008 crisis—just in a different market. Private credit is that market. It's grown to $1 trillion in loans made by hedge funds and asset managers instead of regulated banks. Here's how it works: → Banks lend money... to hedge funds. → Hedge funds use that capital to make risky loans. → Banks claim they have no direct exposure to the borrowers. But the risk doesn't disappear. The loans bypass traditional banking oversight, but the funding still originates from the regulated banking system. When private credit deals go bad, the losses flow back to banks through their hedge fund lending relationships. We're already seeing cracks. BlackRock lost 19% of their private credit fund in one quarter. Subprime auto loans are defaulting at accelerating rates. Overleveraged companies are filing bankruptcy. Nobody's watching the full picture. No transparency requirements mean regulators can't see the scope of interconnected exposures. No one knows which banks are most exposed through which hedge fund relationships. When private credit markets seize up, the connected banks will face losses just like they did with subprime mortgages. The legal framework for "bail-ins" already exists—allowing governments to access depositor funds to recapitalize banks rather than using taxpayer bailouts. This explains why diversification matters. When credit markets experience stress, assets outside the banking system—like precious metals—historically maintain value independent of financial institution health. The pattern repeats: Risk transfer, regulatory gaps, interconnected exposures, and inevitable systemic stress when the cycle reverses. -- This is just scratching the surface of the brewing financial crisis. In a 45-minute video, I also covered: • Why mining stocks give 3-5x leverage to gold price moves (costs stay fixed, profits multiply) • How CME margin hikes force leveraged traders to sell and crash prices •The US has legal framework for bail-ins (Orderly Liquidation Authority) Just comment "CRISIS" and I'll DM you the full video.show more

Felix Prehn 🐶

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George Soros on why controlling the money supply isn't enough to prevent financial crises: "In order to control asset bubbles, it's not enough to control the money supply. You must also control the availability of credit." Soros argues that monetary tools alone are insufficient. Regulators also need credit controls like margin requirements and minimum capital requirements. The problem? These requirements are currently fixed, regardless of market conditions. "Currently, they are fixed, irrespective of the market mood because markets are not supposed to have moods. Yet they do." He points to a time when central banks took a more hands-on approach, instructing commercial banks to limit lending to overheating sectors like real estate. "Market fundamentalists consider that crass interference with the market mechanism, but they are wrong. Central banks used to do it. We had no financial crisis to speak of." Markets have moods, and regulation needs to adapt to them. Fixed rules applied uniformly leave the system vulnerable to the very bubbles they're meant to prevent.

George Soros on why controlling the money supply isn't enough to prevent financial crises: "In order to control asset bubbles, it's not enough to control the money supply. You must also control the availability of credit." Soros argues that monetary tools alone are insufficient. Regulators also need credit controls like margin requirements and minimum capital requirements. The problem? These requirements are currently fixed, regardless of market conditions. "Currently, they are fixed, irrespective of the market mood because markets are not supposed to have moods. Yet they do." He points to a time when central banks took a more hands-on approach, instructing commercial banks to limit lending to overheating sectors like real estate. "Market fundamentalists consider that crass interference with the market mechanism, but they are wrong. Central banks used to do it. We had no financial crisis to speak of." Markets have moods, and regulation needs to adapt to them. Fixed rules applied uniformly leave the system vulnerable to the very bubbles they're meant to prevent.

Big Brain Investing

16,405 views • 5 months ago

ASWATH DAMODARAN: PRIVATE CREDIT IS THE NEXT CRISIS. His framing starts with a question that nobody in the boom is asking. Who exactly are the lenders writing the checks to fund all these AI data centers? Shale oil companies borrowed heavily when oil was at $120 a barrel and got crushed when prices fell to $60. The same pattern is forming today in compute infrastructure, and the people putting up the capital are getting almost no scrutiny. Damodaran does not see private credit as the sophisticated, intelligent alternative the marketing has positioned it as. He sees it as sheep. Every fund is chasing the same deals, the same sectors, and the same yield premiums that allegedly justify the structure. Intelligence in his view has been confused with confidence, and confidence in this corner of finance has compounded into something far more dangerous than the participants realize. His broader point is that hedge funds, private equity, and private credit have all followed the same destructive arc. Each one began as a genuinely good niche business solving a real problem. Hedge funds 30 years ago produced positive alpha, beating passive investing by 3 to 5 percent annually. Today they look like expensive mutual funds, underperforming passive by roughly 1.5 percent. Private equity started as a focused, disciplined strategy for a small set of operators and has grown into a sprawling category that now struggles to deliver the returns that justified its emergence. Private credit had a legitimate original purpose, which was lending to borrowers that banks structurally could not serve. What killed each of these businesses was the same disease. Overreach. A $200 billion niche business gets sold as a $20 trillion opportunity. When that scaling happens, sloppiness follows, bad actors enter the space, and the average quality of every participant deteriorates. The original alpha disappears not because the strategy stopped working, but because too much money chased too few good deals. The danger with private credit is far more severe than the parallel problems in private equity and hedge funds. Equity investors take their losses and move on. Lending businesses, when they overreach, take others down with them. Banks. Pensions. Insurance companies. Sovereign wealth funds. The systemic linkages run far deeper than most participants understand, and the social costs of a real default cycle in private credit would extend well beyond the funds themselves. Damodaran's warning is essentially that the industry is repeating the exact mistake that produced every previous credit crisis. Take a good idea, scale it past its natural capacity, attract bad actors with the promise of easy returns, and wait for the inevitable cycle that exposes how much of the underwriting was never serious in the first place. Aswath Damodaran Fixed + Floating - The Credit Podcast

ASWATH DAMODARAN: PRIVATE CREDIT IS THE NEXT CRISIS. His framing starts with a question that nobody in the boom is asking. Who exactly are the lenders writing the checks to fund all these AI data centers? Shale oil companies borrowed heavily when oil was at $120 a barrel and got crushed when prices fell to $60. The same pattern is forming today in compute infrastructure, and the people putting up the capital are getting almost no scrutiny. Damodaran does not see private credit as the sophisticated, intelligent alternative the marketing has positioned it as. He sees it as sheep. Every fund is chasing the same deals, the same sectors, and the same yield premiums that allegedly justify the structure. Intelligence in his view has been confused with confidence, and confidence in this corner of finance has compounded into something far more dangerous than the participants realize. His broader point is that hedge funds, private equity, and private credit have all followed the same destructive arc. Each one began as a genuinely good niche business solving a real problem. Hedge funds 30 years ago produced positive alpha, beating passive investing by 3 to 5 percent annually. Today they look like expensive mutual funds, underperforming passive by roughly 1.5 percent. Private equity started as a focused, disciplined strategy for a small set of operators and has grown into a sprawling category that now struggles to deliver the returns that justified its emergence. Private credit had a legitimate original purpose, which was lending to borrowers that banks structurally could not serve. What killed each of these businesses was the same disease. Overreach. A $200 billion niche business gets sold as a $20 trillion opportunity. When that scaling happens, sloppiness follows, bad actors enter the space, and the average quality of every participant deteriorates. The original alpha disappears not because the strategy stopped working, but because too much money chased too few good deals. The danger with private credit is far more severe than the parallel problems in private equity and hedge funds. Equity investors take their losses and move on. Lending businesses, when they overreach, take others down with them. Banks. Pensions. Insurance companies. Sovereign wealth funds. The systemic linkages run far deeper than most participants understand, and the social costs of a real default cycle in private credit would extend well beyond the funds themselves. Damodaran's warning is essentially that the industry is repeating the exact mistake that produced every previous credit crisis. Take a good idea, scale it past its natural capacity, attract bad actors with the promise of easy returns, and wait for the inevitable cycle that exposes how much of the underwriting was never serious in the first place. Aswath Damodaran Fixed + Floating - The Credit Podcast

Lumida Wealth Management

109,472 views • 2 months ago

In August, President Trump signed an executive order titled "Democratizing Access to Alternative Assets for 401(k) Investors." The order directs regulators to make it easier for your retirement savings to flow into private credit, private equity, and other "alternative" assets. The Department of Labor quickly rescinded Biden-era guidance that had discouraged these investments in retirement plans. Apollo. Blackstone. Goldman Sachs. State Street. They're all racing to launch private credit products for your 401(k). But here's the problem: Private credit is showing cracks at the exact moment they want to open it up to retail investors. Just this week, BlackRock TCP Capital - one of the largest publicly traded private credit funds - plunged 17% after disclosing a 19% writedown on its net asset value. The biggest drop in almost six years. This is BlackRock. The world's largest asset manager. $14T in assets. If they're taking hits like this, what chance does your 401k have? Let me walk you through what's actually happening in this market... Private credit has ballooned to over $2T in assets. For years, it was the domain of sophisticated institutional investors - pension funds, endowments, insurance companies. These investors have teams of analysts, lawyers, and risk managers to evaluate complex deals. Your average 401k participant doesn't have any of that. And the timing couldn't be worse. The IMF's 2025 Financial Stability Report found that 40% of private credit borrowers now have NEGATIVE free cash flow. That's up from 25% in 2021. Goldman Sachs data shows 15% of borrowers can no longer generate enough cash to fully cover their interest payments. UBS forecasts that private credit defaults could climb by 3 percentage points in 2026 - outpacing leveraged loans and high-yield bonds. Meanwhile, payment-in-kind loans - where struggling borrowers defer interest by adding it to their debt balance - have surged from 7.4% in 2021 to over 11% today. When a company can't pay interest in cash, that's not a sign of health. It's a sign of stress being disguised. Then came September's wake-up call: Auto parts maker First Brands collapsed with $8B in off-balance-sheet financing that wasn't properly disclosed to lenders. Subprime auto lender Tricolor imploded amid allegations it pledged the same loans as collateral to multiple creditors. Both received clean audits shortly before they cratered. First Brands' term loans went from 90 cents on the dollar to under 15 cents in weeks. JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon put it bluntly: "When you see one cockroach, there are probably more." Here's what makes this dangerous: Private credit is lightly regulated, less transparent, and difficult to value accurately. The managers making the loans are often the same ones valuing them. They have every incentive to delay recognizing problems. The DOJ has already issued warnings about "creative" marks and questionable valuation practices. Banks aren't insulated either. They've lent over $2.2T to non-bank financial institutions. When problems surface in private credit, banks feel it too. And now they want to put this in YOUR retirement account. The pitch is that private credit offers "higher returns" and "diversification." But the data doesn't support the sales pitch: Recent research shows pension funds increasing exposure to private markets have actually seen depressed returns compared to simple stock and bond portfolios. The 50 largest US pension funds averaged just 7.4% returns over the past decade. A basic 60/40 portfolio beat many of them. The real beneficiaries are fund managers charging 2% fees on assets that can't be easily valued or sold. My view really hasn't changed: AVOID PRIVATE CREDIT When sophisticated institutional investors start pulling back - and they are - the last thing you want to do is rush in. Stay in liquid, transparent, low-cost investments for your retirement. Don't be the exit liquidity.

In August, President Trump signed an executive order titled "Democratizing Access to Alternative Assets for 401(k) Investors." The order directs regulators to make it easier for your retirement savings to flow into private credit, private equity, and other "alternative" assets. The Department of Labor quickly rescinded Biden-era guidance that had discouraged these investments in retirement plans. Apollo. Blackstone. Goldman Sachs. State Street. They're all racing to launch private credit products for your 401(k). But here's the problem: Private credit is showing cracks at the exact moment they want to open it up to retail investors. Just this week, BlackRock TCP Capital - one of the largest publicly traded private credit funds - plunged 17% after disclosing a 19% writedown on its net asset value. The biggest drop in almost six years. This is BlackRock. The world's largest asset manager. $14T in assets. If they're taking hits like this, what chance does your 401k have? Let me walk you through what's actually happening in this market... Private credit has ballooned to over $2T in assets. For years, it was the domain of sophisticated institutional investors - pension funds, endowments, insurance companies. These investors have teams of analysts, lawyers, and risk managers to evaluate complex deals. Your average 401k participant doesn't have any of that. And the timing couldn't be worse. The IMF's 2025 Financial Stability Report found that 40% of private credit borrowers now have NEGATIVE free cash flow. That's up from 25% in 2021. Goldman Sachs data shows 15% of borrowers can no longer generate enough cash to fully cover their interest payments. UBS forecasts that private credit defaults could climb by 3 percentage points in 2026 - outpacing leveraged loans and high-yield bonds. Meanwhile, payment-in-kind loans - where struggling borrowers defer interest by adding it to their debt balance - have surged from 7.4% in 2021 to over 11% today. When a company can't pay interest in cash, that's not a sign of health. It's a sign of stress being disguised. Then came September's wake-up call: Auto parts maker First Brands collapsed with $8B in off-balance-sheet financing that wasn't properly disclosed to lenders. Subprime auto lender Tricolor imploded amid allegations it pledged the same loans as collateral to multiple creditors. Both received clean audits shortly before they cratered. First Brands' term loans went from 90 cents on the dollar to under 15 cents in weeks. JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon put it bluntly: "When you see one cockroach, there are probably more." Here's what makes this dangerous: Private credit is lightly regulated, less transparent, and difficult to value accurately. The managers making the loans are often the same ones valuing them. They have every incentive to delay recognizing problems. The DOJ has already issued warnings about "creative" marks and questionable valuation practices. Banks aren't insulated either. They've lent over $2.2T to non-bank financial institutions. When problems surface in private credit, banks feel it too. And now they want to put this in YOUR retirement account. The pitch is that private credit offers "higher returns" and "diversification." But the data doesn't support the sales pitch: Recent research shows pension funds increasing exposure to private markets have actually seen depressed returns compared to simple stock and bond portfolios. The 50 largest US pension funds averaged just 7.4% returns over the past decade. A basic 60/40 portfolio beat many of them. The real beneficiaries are fund managers charging 2% fees on assets that can't be easily valued or sold. My view really hasn't changed: AVOID PRIVATE CREDIT When sophisticated institutional investors start pulling back - and they are - the last thing you want to do is rush in. Stay in liquid, transparent, low-cost investments for your retirement. Don't be the exit liquidity.

George Noble

932,848 views • 7 months ago

Why The Shadow Banking System Could Trigger The Next Major Crisis Please ❤️like, bookmark🔖, and 🔁share with fellow investors In this Short video, Danielle Danielle DiMartino Booth and Adam Taggart discuss why the shadow banking system—not traditional banks—could become the source of the next major financial crisis. * Private credit may have disappeared from the headlines, but that doesn't mean the risks have disappeared with it. In this discussion, the focus shifts beyond private credit itself to the much larger theme—the shadow banking system—and why it could become the next major source of financial instability. * Companies have raised a record $251 billion through equity sales in the first half of the year. That surge has also drawn renewed attention to private equity, which sits at the center of the private credit ecosystem. The concern isn't simply the size of private credit—it's whether the underlying private asset valuations are realistic. * A key issue is the feedback loop between private and public markets. Many public companies own private investments, and gains from those holdings can boost reported earnings. If those private assets are being valued too aggressively, investors have to ask whether the "E" in the P/E ratio is as solid as it appears. Inflated valuations can support stronger earnings, higher stock prices, and more capital raising, creating a cycle that works well until confidence begins to crack. * Although fears around private credit have faded in recent months, Danielle argues that the market has simply moved into an "acceptance phase," not a resolution phase. The structural problems remain, but investors have largely stopped talking about them. * Meanwhile, non-bank financial institutions now control roughly $258 trillion in assets, representing more than half of global financial assets and exceeding the size of the traditional regulated banking system. Unlike banks, these institutions operate with far less transparency and oversight, making it much harder to assess the true level of risk. * At the same time, higher interest rates continue to pressure borrowers. Public company bankruptcies are already running about 40% higher than a year ago, suggesting financial stress is building. If publicly traded companies are struggling under today's financing conditions, the health of private companies—where financial information is far less accessible—remains a major unknown. * Danielle rates concern about private markets at roughly a 7–8 out of 10 now. The combination of opaque valuations, rising bankruptcies, higher-for-longer interest rates, and the enormous size of the shadow banking system creates a meaningful systemic risk. While this doesn't guarantee another financial crisis, it highlights an area that many investors may be underestimating simply because it has faded from the daily news cycle. #privatecredit #privateequity 💡 Get access to my notes with the key takeaways from this interview with Danielle Danielle DiMartino Booth by visiting my Substack (link below) ⬇️

Why The Shadow Banking System Could Trigger The Next Major Crisis Please ❤️like, bookmark🔖, and 🔁share with fellow investors In this Short video, Danielle Danielle DiMartino Booth and Adam Taggart discuss why the shadow banking system—not traditional banks—could become the source of the next major financial crisis. * Private credit may have disappeared from the headlines, but that doesn't mean the risks have disappeared with it. In this discussion, the focus shifts beyond private credit itself to the much larger theme—the shadow banking system—and why it could become the next major source of financial instability. * Companies have raised a record $251 billion through equity sales in the first half of the year. That surge has also drawn renewed attention to private equity, which sits at the center of the private credit ecosystem. The concern isn't simply the size of private credit—it's whether the underlying private asset valuations are realistic. * A key issue is the feedback loop between private and public markets. Many public companies own private investments, and gains from those holdings can boost reported earnings. If those private assets are being valued too aggressively, investors have to ask whether the "E" in the P/E ratio is as solid as it appears. Inflated valuations can support stronger earnings, higher stock prices, and more capital raising, creating a cycle that works well until confidence begins to crack. * Although fears around private credit have faded in recent months, Danielle argues that the market has simply moved into an "acceptance phase," not a resolution phase. The structural problems remain, but investors have largely stopped talking about them. * Meanwhile, non-bank financial institutions now control roughly $258 trillion in assets, representing more than half of global financial assets and exceeding the size of the traditional regulated banking system. Unlike banks, these institutions operate with far less transparency and oversight, making it much harder to assess the true level of risk. * At the same time, higher interest rates continue to pressure borrowers. Public company bankruptcies are already running about 40% higher than a year ago, suggesting financial stress is building. If publicly traded companies are struggling under today's financing conditions, the health of private companies—where financial information is far less accessible—remains a major unknown. * Danielle rates concern about private markets at roughly a 7–8 out of 10 now. The combination of opaque valuations, rising bankruptcies, higher-for-longer interest rates, and the enormous size of the shadow banking system creates a meaningful systemic risk. While this doesn't guarantee another financial crisis, it highlights an area that many investors may be underestimating simply because it has faded from the daily news cycle. #privatecredit #privateequity 💡 Get access to my notes with the key takeaways from this interview with Danielle Danielle DiMartino Booth by visiting my Substack (link below) ⬇️

Thoughtful Money®

15,115 views • 2 months ago

Out now - my interview w/ world's largest in CLO equity (Collateralized Loan Obligations), Thomas Majewski, on: - "Private credit" is assuming some of the CLO world's riskiest loans - "Phone was lighting up" in September as banks rushed to offload credit risk to non-bank credit funds to meet capital requirements (this "regulatory capital relief market" is similar to credit default swap but employs a different instrument, the credit-linked note) - Private credit could be part golden age, part "biggest bubble in world" (I prompted him, not his original words). - CLOs are a "better bank" because there has "never been a run on them", and because "corporate America pays its bills," the senior corporate loans that make up CLOs are very unlike the subprime mortgages that made up CLO's problem cousin, the CDO, the structure that led to 2008. - He is quite clear that, in his *personal* opinion CLO equity offers the best risk/reward compared to other tranches. However, when it comes to private credit and BDCs (business development companies), there's a compelling case for being senior (i.e. lending to BDCs, rather than being an owner/equityholder) - The credit reality is worse than news, at least when it comes to senior loans. There were a grand total of 0 defaults in September. If the most predicted recession in history actually comes, he believes that **with due time**, CLO equity tranches will perform well because of they will be able to use par dollars to buy up discounted loans, as they did during 2008 Great Financial Crisis All of the above is my own paraphrasing of the interview, for exact quotes see the interview. It also comes with this official disclaimer: "any past performance discussed in this presentation is not indicative of, or a guarantee of, future performance." Enjoy 🔥

Out now - my interview w/ world's largest in CLO equity (Collateralized Loan Obligations), Thomas Majewski, on: - "Private credit" is assuming some of the CLO world's riskiest loans - "Phone was lighting up" in September as banks rushed to offload credit risk to non-bank credit funds to meet capital requirements (this "regulatory capital relief market" is similar to credit default swap but employs a different instrument, the credit-linked note) - Private credit could be part golden age, part "biggest bubble in world" (I prompted him, not his original words). - CLOs are a "better bank" because there has "never been a run on them", and because "corporate America pays its bills," the senior corporate loans that make up CLOs are very unlike the subprime mortgages that made up CLO's problem cousin, the CDO, the structure that led to 2008. - He is quite clear that, in his personal opinion CLO equity offers the best risk/reward compared to other tranches. However, when it comes to private credit and BDCs (business development companies), there's a compelling case for being senior (i.e. lending to BDCs, rather than being an owner/equityholder) - The credit reality is worse than news, at least when it comes to senior loans. There were a grand total of 0 defaults in September. If the most predicted recession in history actually comes, he believes that with due time, CLO equity tranches will perform well because of they will be able to use par dollars to buy up discounted loans, as they did during 2008 Great Financial Crisis All of the above is my own paraphrasing of the interview, for exact quotes see the interview. It also comes with this official disclaimer: "any past performance discussed in this presentation is not indicative of, or a guarantee of, future performance." Enjoy 🔥

Jack Farley

172,341 views • 2 years ago

"Constipated." That is the word now being used for the private credit market. And it is exactly what this looks like. The private credit story is changing. For months it was framed as a liquidity problem. Investors trying to pull their money out. That is still a huge problem. BlackRock just had a couple of funds suffering big runs. But there is a bigger one. It is no longer just the investors who want out. It is the investors outside who no longer want in. And that is the much bigger story. Because the private credit boom was built on flows. Constant inflows from wealth managers, pensions, insurance companies, and the general public. That is how big it got. The machine has to keep moving. Money comes in. Loans get made. Funds grow. Redemptions get handled. Managers collect their fees. Everyone pretends it is calm because the marks are smooth and the exits are limited. Now the machine is reversing. Reuters reported US direct lending issuance in the three months ending May was down roughly 40% from the first quarter. Issuance to private-equity-backed borrowers dropped nearly 37%. Volume tied to leveraged buyouts fell about 34%. So this is no longer just a redemption story. The exits are clogged. New money is hesitant. Sellers will not cut prices, and buyers will not pay yesterday's valuations. Credit funds are handling redemptions. Leveraged loans are showing strain. And publicly traded BDCs are not rebounding, even as the broader market soars. So the question is no longer whether investors are still withdrawing. They are, and it is accelerating. It is not about the people inside who want out. It is about the people outside who no longer want in. That is the bigger problem. It pushes us deeper into stage two, and the odds of stage three go up from here.

"Constipated." That is the word now being used for the private credit market. And it is exactly what this looks like. The private credit story is changing. For months it was framed as a liquidity problem. Investors trying to pull their money out. That is still a huge problem. BlackRock just had a couple of funds suffering big runs. But there is a bigger one. It is no longer just the investors who want out. It is the investors outside who no longer want in. And that is the much bigger story. Because the private credit boom was built on flows. Constant inflows from wealth managers, pensions, insurance companies, and the general public. That is how big it got. The machine has to keep moving. Money comes in. Loans get made. Funds grow. Redemptions get handled. Managers collect their fees. Everyone pretends it is calm because the marks are smooth and the exits are limited. Now the machine is reversing. Reuters reported US direct lending issuance in the three months ending May was down roughly 40% from the first quarter. Issuance to private-equity-backed borrowers dropped nearly 37%. Volume tied to leveraged buyouts fell about 34%. So this is no longer just a redemption story. The exits are clogged. New money is hesitant. Sellers will not cut prices, and buyers will not pay yesterday's valuations. Credit funds are handling redemptions. Leveraged loans are showing strain. And publicly traded BDCs are not rebounding, even as the broader market soars. So the question is no longer whether investors are still withdrawing. They are, and it is accelerating. It is not about the people inside who want out. It is about the people outside who no longer want in. That is the bigger problem. It pushes us deeper into stage two, and the odds of stage three go up from here.

Jeffrey P. Snider

24,551 views • 2 months ago

Something strange is happening in markets, and almost nobody is watching it. US stocks are surging. Tech is euphoric. Semiconductors are going vertical. The party is back on. Except in Hong Kong. The Hang Seng is falling hard, going the opposite direction. That matters, because Hong Kong is the money gateway into China and across Asia. Money flows through it when people believe in China, when trade is strong, when dollars are easy. So ask the uncomfortable question. What is Hong Kong seeing that everyone else is ignoring? The answer is in China's credit markets. For new credit, bonds have now passed bank loans for the first time. About 30% of the credit stock in May, a record. The official spin is modernization. China moving from property to a high-tech, capital-markets future. It sounds reassuring. It is not. Here is what they leave out. Bank lending creates money. A loan makes a new deposit, new purchasing power, on the spot. Bond issuance does not. Someone buys the bond with savings that already exist. It just moves money around. So bonds can only cushion the fall. They cannot replace the credit that banks are no longer creating. And the banks are pulling back for a reason. A slow-motion credit crisis. As many as 100 million consumers struggling to service their debt. Bad household loans up 21% to a record 2.2 trillion yuan. Nearly 11% of adults behind on payments. Now ask who is issuing all these bonds. Not companies expanding. The government, borrowing to paper over the gap. That is not modernization. Heavy government issuance means the private sector is too scared to borrow, so the state steps in. That is desperation. We have seen this movie. Post-2008 US and Europe. Banks retreated, bonds backstopped, and the economy got the silent depression anyway. That is what Hong Kong is pricing. Not a recovery. Bonds are not the sign China solved its problems. They are the sign the banks can no longer carry them.

Something strange is happening in markets, and almost nobody is watching it. US stocks are surging. Tech is euphoric. Semiconductors are going vertical. The party is back on. Except in Hong Kong. The Hang Seng is falling hard, going the opposite direction. That matters, because Hong Kong is the money gateway into China and across Asia. Money flows through it when people believe in China, when trade is strong, when dollars are easy. So ask the uncomfortable question. What is Hong Kong seeing that everyone else is ignoring? The answer is in China's credit markets. For new credit, bonds have now passed bank loans for the first time. About 30% of the credit stock in May, a record. The official spin is modernization. China moving from property to a high-tech, capital-markets future. It sounds reassuring. It is not. Here is what they leave out. Bank lending creates money. A loan makes a new deposit, new purchasing power, on the spot. Bond issuance does not. Someone buys the bond with savings that already exist. It just moves money around. So bonds can only cushion the fall. They cannot replace the credit that banks are no longer creating. And the banks are pulling back for a reason. A slow-motion credit crisis. As many as 100 million consumers struggling to service their debt. Bad household loans up 21% to a record 2.2 trillion yuan. Nearly 11% of adults behind on payments. Now ask who is issuing all these bonds. Not companies expanding. The government, borrowing to paper over the gap. That is not modernization. Heavy government issuance means the private sector is too scared to borrow, so the state steps in. That is desperation. We have seen this movie. Post-2008 US and Europe. Banks retreated, bonds backstopped, and the economy got the silent depression anyway. That is what Hong Kong is pricing. Not a recovery. Bonds are not the sign China solved its problems. They are the sign the banks can no longer carry them.

Jeffrey P. Snider

30,043 views • 2 months ago

🚨If Ukraine🇺🇦 fails, Europe’s🇪🇺 banking sector could go into CRISIS, Western European banking sector is approaching a cliff! ‘The cleanup after the 2008 financial crisis didn’t really happen in Europe. All the bad assets remained in the balance sheet of European banks and they have been hidden in various ways. But the collapse of the venerable Credit Suisse in March 2023 kind of showed where the European banking sector actually is. But this is not just a European problem. It’s also the problem of the US. But in Europe we have a kind of a twist here, which is that we don’t actually know how much loans the European banks have provided to Ukraine, but some estimated it to be a large sum. And if Ukraine would fail, it could cause more problems in the European banking sector. But I would say that the whole Western banking system is kind of closing in on the cliff, which the approaching recession could push the banking sector over and lead to a banking crisis.’ -Tuomas Malinen, CEO of GnS Economics joins us for Monday’s episode of Going Underground Don’t miss it, follow our Rumble channel, link below in the replies👇

🚨If Ukraine🇺🇦 fails, Europe’s🇪🇺 banking sector could go into CRISIS, Western European banking sector is approaching a cliff! ‘The cleanup after the 2008 financial crisis didn’t really happen in Europe. All the bad assets remained in the balance sheet of European banks and they have been hidden in various ways. But the collapse of the venerable Credit Suisse in March 2023 kind of showed where the European banking sector actually is. But this is not just a European problem. It’s also the problem of the US. But in Europe we have a kind of a twist here, which is that we don’t actually know how much loans the European banks have provided to Ukraine, but some estimated it to be a large sum. And if Ukraine would fail, it could cause more problems in the European banking sector. But I would say that the whole Western banking system is kind of closing in on the cliff, which the approaching recession could push the banking sector over and lead to a banking crisis.’ -Tuomas Malinen, CEO of GnS Economics joins us for Monday’s episode of Going Underground Don’t miss it, follow our Rumble channel, link below in the replies👇

Going Underground

22,321 views • 7 months ago

Something big just happened at BlackRock, and it’s a warning shot to everyone invested in private credit. The world’s largest asset manager just told clients: No, you can’t withdraw all the money you asked for. And for some, it was: no, you can’t withdraw your money at all. Not because the fund collapsed, but because too many investors wanted out at once. BlackRock’s $26 billion HPS Corporate Lending Fund was hit with $1.2 billion in redemption requests this quarter. That’s about 9.3% of the entire fund. But the structure only allows 5% to leave at once. So BlackRock paid out $620 million… and pushed the rest to future quarters. For the first time since the fund launched, the redemption gate was triggered, meaning nearly half the investors who asked for their money back couldn’t get it right away. And it’s not just BlackRock. Blackstone just saw a surge of withdrawals in its $82 billion private credit fund. Requests were so high the firm had to lift its usual redemption cap to 7% and inject $400 million of its own money just to meet demand. These funds lend money to companies through private loans, loans that don’t trade on exchanges and can’t be sold quickly when markets get volatile. So when investors rush to withdraw at the same time, the cash simply isn’t there. That means if you’re invested in private credit and everyone heads for the exits, the money you were counting on in your time of need might suddenly be locked up. Morningstar analyst Greggory Warren warned it should serve as “a warning sign for the industry and the rulemakers about the downside of illiquid funds for retail investors.” But here’s the good news: you’re an informed reader and you can plan ahead while everyone sleepwalks until the liquidity crisis affects them directly. That means there is still time to prepare and make moves accordingly so that you always have access to capital. And one of the most liquid and reliable assets in any crisis is physical gold and silver. Bill Armour from joins us to discuss how our readers can prepare before the next liquidity crisis locks investors out of their own money. 🧵

Something big just happened at BlackRock, and it’s a warning shot to everyone invested in private credit. The world’s largest asset manager just told clients: No, you can’t withdraw all the money you asked for. And for some, it was: no, you can’t withdraw your money at all. Not because the fund collapsed, but because too many investors wanted out at once. BlackRock’s $26 billion HPS Corporate Lending Fund was hit with $1.2 billion in redemption requests this quarter. That’s about 9.3% of the entire fund. But the structure only allows 5% to leave at once. So BlackRock paid out $620 million… and pushed the rest to future quarters. For the first time since the fund launched, the redemption gate was triggered, meaning nearly half the investors who asked for their money back couldn’t get it right away. And it’s not just BlackRock. Blackstone just saw a surge of withdrawals in its $82 billion private credit fund. Requests were so high the firm had to lift its usual redemption cap to 7% and inject $400 million of its own money just to meet demand. These funds lend money to companies through private loans, loans that don’t trade on exchanges and can’t be sold quickly when markets get volatile. So when investors rush to withdraw at the same time, the cash simply isn’t there. That means if you’re invested in private credit and everyone heads for the exits, the money you were counting on in your time of need might suddenly be locked up. Morningstar analyst Greggory Warren warned it should serve as “a warning sign for the industry and the rulemakers about the downside of illiquid funds for retail investors.” But here’s the good news: you’re an informed reader and you can plan ahead while everyone sleepwalks until the liquidity crisis affects them directly. That means there is still time to prepare and make moves accordingly so that you always have access to capital. And one of the most liquid and reliable assets in any crisis is physical gold and silver. Bill Armour from joins us to discuss how our readers can prepare before the next liquidity crisis locks investors out of their own money. 🧵

The Vigilant Fox 🦊

125,874 views • 5 months ago

THE BOND MARKET IS FLASHING A WARNING As interest rates keep climbing and inflation fears return, the U.S. bond market is showing deeper signs of stress. That may sound distant from everyday life, but bond-market trouble quickly reaches Main Street through the cost of a mortgage, a car loan, a credit card balance, and the stability of the banking system. Professor Steve Hanke (Steve Hanke) warns that higher yields could lead to another surge in mortgage rates, more expensive credit card debt, and growing pressure on banks already carrying losses and exposure to rising rates. When government borrowing becomes more costly, the burden spreads across the economy. Years of government-driven inflation have pushed the economy toward dangerous territory. The concern is not just that prices will stay high; it is that a worsening bond-market crisis could trigger a broader financial shock that households will be forced to absorb.

THE BOND MARKET IS FLASHING A WARNING As interest rates keep climbing and inflation fears return, the U.S. bond market is showing deeper signs of stress. That may sound distant from everyday life, but bond-market trouble quickly reaches Main Street through the cost of a mortgage, a car loan, a credit card balance, and the stability of the banking system. Professor Steve Hanke (Steve Hanke) warns that higher yields could lead to another surge in mortgage rates, more expensive credit card debt, and growing pressure on banks already carrying losses and exposure to rising rates. When government borrowing becomes more costly, the burden spreads across the economy. Years of government-driven inflation have pushed the economy toward dangerous territory. The concern is not just that prices will stay high; it is that a worsening bond-market crisis could trigger a broader financial shock that households will be forced to absorb.

Redacted

21,519 views • 20 days ago

If you are going to read one thing today, make it this one "What the fuck is going on private credit?" Private credit is getting sassy People are lining up to get their money back Big changes came out around lev-fin after the GFC The new guidelines meant banks could not lend to LBO above 6.0x Private credit stepped in to fill the gap Pre-GFC, deals were small, and docs were tight Private credit has outgrown levered loans Why? Fees Private credits make ~6-7x fees vs levered loans The race is off, if you don't own a private credit business, you own it How do you deploy so much capital? Focus on large deals Which sectors? Software, business service = AI exposed sectors Those billions deals look like levered loans, much worse docs Many new deals were done lending against revenue, not against cash flow. Private credit guys were so confident because multiples kept expanding Then ChatGPT shows up AI Exposed companies are down 50% And to make things worse, the covid LBOs are maturing now Private credit is saying LTM figures are fine, but public credit recoveries are down, especially in tech Sponsors have misaligned interests, if they think the company will be disrupted, they pay themselves dividends People now want to get out

If you are going to read one thing today, make it this one "What the fuck is going on private credit?" Private credit is getting sassy People are lining up to get their money back Big changes came out around lev-fin after the GFC The new guidelines meant banks could not lend to LBO above 6.0x Private credit stepped in to fill the gap Pre-GFC, deals were small, and docs were tight Private credit has outgrown levered loans Why? Fees Private credits make ~6-7x fees vs levered loans The race is off, if you don't own a private credit business, you own it How do you deploy so much capital? Focus on large deals Which sectors? Software, business service = AI exposed sectors Those billions deals look like levered loans, much worse docs Many new deals were done lending against revenue, not against cash flow. Private credit guys were so confident because multiples kept expanding Then ChatGPT shows up AI Exposed companies are down 50% And to make things worse, the covid LBOs are maturing now Private credit is saying LTM figures are fine, but public credit recoveries are down, especially in tech Sponsors have misaligned interests, if they think the company will be disrupted, they pay themselves dividends People now want to get out

Restructuring__

28,238 views • 3 months ago

Alastair Crooke: US🇺🇸 regime change in Venezuela🇻🇪 is about dominating ALL of Western hemisphere from Argentina to the Arctic…and the US’ growing FINANCIAL CRISIS ‘Venezuela is a huge country. It’s bigger than Ukraine. It’s a large, very large country. And it has connections. You know, I for a period lived in Colombia and you know, it’s quite likely that there are militia waiting to join in on the borders. What are they going to do? Decapitate the government? Bombing it or invading it or kidnapping it? I don’t know. But when the FT says they’re unprepared, this is just psy-ops to say this is an easy war, we will take all that oil and gas and natural resources, and it’ll be folded into the United States. I mean what I think this is about is that the Trump team has made it very clear and sent sort of very clear messages to those receiving, saying from the southernmost tip of Argentina to the Arctic, this is all going to be folded into the new US Western hemisphere sphere of interest. So all of this is part of that, but it’s also part of the US financial crisis. They’ve got a shadow banking system which is now 50% of the credit, which is 50% of total credit given from America, dwarfing almost the conventional deregulated banking system. This is unregulated, is over-leveraged and as the economist from the BIS just said the other day, this is half of the credit given out and we haven’t a clue what’s going on there. In the regulated system we’ve got an idea of what’s going on in the banks, but in the shadow banking system which is now half of the total, we don’t have an idea what’s going on there.’ -Alastair Crooke, the former Middle East Advisor to the EU Foreign Policy Chief, on the latest episode of Going Underground FULL INTERVIEW BELOW IN THE REPLIES👇

Alastair Crooke: US🇺🇸 regime change in Venezuela🇻🇪 is about dominating ALL of Western hemisphere from Argentina to the Arctic…and the US’ growing FINANCIAL CRISIS ‘Venezuela is a huge country. It’s bigger than Ukraine. It’s a large, very large country. And it has connections. You know, I for a period lived in Colombia and you know, it’s quite likely that there are militia waiting to join in on the borders. What are they going to do? Decapitate the government? Bombing it or invading it or kidnapping it? I don’t know. But when the FT says they’re unprepared, this is just psy-ops to say this is an easy war, we will take all that oil and gas and natural resources, and it’ll be folded into the United States. I mean what I think this is about is that the Trump team has made it very clear and sent sort of very clear messages to those receiving, saying from the southernmost tip of Argentina to the Arctic, this is all going to be folded into the new US Western hemisphere sphere of interest. So all of this is part of that, but it’s also part of the US financial crisis. They’ve got a shadow banking system which is now 50% of the credit, which is 50% of total credit given from America, dwarfing almost the conventional deregulated banking system. This is unregulated, is over-leveraged and as the economist from the BIS just said the other day, this is half of the credit given out and we haven’t a clue what’s going on there. In the regulated system we’ve got an idea of what’s going on in the banks, but in the shadow banking system which is now half of the total, we don’t have an idea what’s going on there.’ -Alastair Crooke, the former Middle East Advisor to the EU Foreign Policy Chief, on the latest episode of Going Underground FULL INTERVIEW BELOW IN THE REPLIES👇

Going Underground

105,841 views • 9 months ago

Leaving Citadel & launching a $1B AI hedge fund — how Renee Yao built NeoIvy Capital from scratch Renee Yao walked away from two of the most elite hedge funds on Wall Street — Citadel & Millennium — and built a quant fund on a fundamentally different model: modern AI instead of human-powered alpha generation. The result: $1B+ in regulatory AUM, uncorrelated returns through COVID, & a fund Business Insider named one of the top transforming investing in North America. We cover: - Why large multi-manager quant firms rely on massive global researcher headcounts — & why Renee saw that as a model worth disrupting - The 3 barriers to entry in AI-driven quant — & why legacy sequential infrastructure can be a disadvantage compared to modern parallel distributed systems - How NeoIvy's self-evolving models adapted in real time during the March 2020 crash — while traditional quant managers had a nightmare month - The difference between beta returns, factor returns & pure alpha — & why size is the enemy of true idiosyncratic returns - Why the "black box" reputation of quant funds has been the #1 fundraising obstacle - How a 4-year-old girl visiting her uncle's room-sized supercomputer in China set the foundation for all of this - The edge/breadth/constraint framework from Grinold & Kahn — & how it shaped Renee's thinking on diversification - Renee's raw advice on staying disciplined when everyone around you is chasing beta in a bull market Transcript: 00:00 Intro 01:14 Renee Yao’s journey to founding Neo Ivy 02:28 Joining Citadel after the financial crisis 04:13 Hedge fund diversification and breadth of edge 04:45 Why Neo Ivy trades with AI strategies 07:50 How self-learning AI adapts to markets 09:40 Causation vs correlation in AI hedge funds 10:33 Barriers to entry for AI hedge funds 14:47 Risks of crowded factor bets explained 16:39 Why big funds struggle with AI talent 17:29 From PM at Citadel to hedge fund founder 18:47 Challenges of launching a quant hedge fund 20:25 Biggest constraint for AI hedge fund startups 22:08 How AI hedge funds adapted during COVID 24:04 Modern AI tools used in quant trading 25:13 Building hedge fund infrastructure from scratch 26:26 Career advice for aspiring quants and traders 28:55 Adapting career goals to changing job markets 31:57 Life lessons from trading and risk management 32:51 Staying disciplined while running a hedge fund 34:38 Obsession and belief in AI hedge funds 35:41 Closing thoughts on hedge funds and life

Leaving Citadel & launching a $1B AI hedge fund — how Renee Yao built NeoIvy Capital from scratch Renee Yao walked away from two of the most elite hedge funds on Wall Street — Citadel & Millennium — and built a quant fund on a fundamentally different model: modern AI instead of human-powered alpha generation. The result: $1B+ in regulatory AUM, uncorrelated returns through COVID, & a fund Business Insider named one of the top transforming investing in North America. We cover: - Why large multi-manager quant firms rely on massive global researcher headcounts — & why Renee saw that as a model worth disrupting - The 3 barriers to entry in AI-driven quant — & why legacy sequential infrastructure can be a disadvantage compared to modern parallel distributed systems - How NeoIvy's self-evolving models adapted in real time during the March 2020 crash — while traditional quant managers had a nightmare month - The difference between beta returns, factor returns & pure alpha — & why size is the enemy of true idiosyncratic returns - Why the "black box" reputation of quant funds has been the #1 fundraising obstacle - How a 4-year-old girl visiting her uncle's room-sized supercomputer in China set the foundation for all of this - The edge/breadth/constraint framework from Grinold & Kahn — & how it shaped Renee's thinking on diversification - Renee's raw advice on staying disciplined when everyone around you is chasing beta in a bull market Transcript: 00:00 Intro 01:14 Renee Yao’s journey to founding Neo Ivy 02:28 Joining Citadel after the financial crisis 04:13 Hedge fund diversification and breadth of edge 04:45 Why Neo Ivy trades with AI strategies 07:50 How self-learning AI adapts to markets 09:40 Causation vs correlation in AI hedge funds 10:33 Barriers to entry for AI hedge funds 14:47 Risks of crowded factor bets explained 16:39 Why big funds struggle with AI talent 17:29 From PM at Citadel to hedge fund founder 18:47 Challenges of launching a quant hedge fund 20:25 Biggest constraint for AI hedge fund startups 22:08 How AI hedge funds adapted during COVID 24:04 Modern AI tools used in quant trading 25:13 Building hedge fund infrastructure from scratch 26:26 Career advice for aspiring quants and traders 28:55 Adapting career goals to changing job markets 31:57 Life lessons from trading and risk management 32:51 Staying disciplined while running a hedge fund 34:38 Obsession and belief in AI hedge funds 35:41 Closing thoughts on hedge funds and life

Ethan Kho

138,224 views • 6 months ago

Private credit just hit the brakes, and the numbers are not subtle. New US direct lending issuance fell from about $74.6 billion in the first quarter to about $44.8 billion in the three months ending May, according to PitchBook. That is a massive slowdown in a single quarter. Private equity-backed borrowing dropped to about $28.5 billion. Lending tied to leveraged buyouts fell to about $15.2 billion. This is the private credit engine losing speed at the exact moment it needs confidence. And the reasons are not a mystery. Fundraising is still well below its peak. Redemption requests are elevated and still climbing. Investors are scrutinizing loan quality. And borrowers are stuck in a flat, gone-bad economy. For years private credit took market share because it was fast and certain. It could finance deals when the banks and the syndicated markets could not, because everyone assumed the economy would be good forever. That assumption is breaking. Now these funds are preserving liquidity and stretching to get deals done. So they have far less appetite to finance private equity at aggressive valuations. And that is where private equity gets pulled in. It ran on the leverage that private credit provided, and that engine is reversing. Here is the standoff. Private equity firms will not sell assets at lower prices, because that means admitting yesterday's marks were too high. Buyers will not pay peak multiples in a higher-rate, slower-growth world. Lenders will not underwrite the old assumptions. Investors do not want more money locked up. So the whole machine slows, grinds to a halt, and starts to reverse. One guy called it constipation.

Private credit just hit the brakes, and the numbers are not subtle. New US direct lending issuance fell from about $74.6 billion in the first quarter to about $44.8 billion in the three months ending May, according to PitchBook. That is a massive slowdown in a single quarter. Private equity-backed borrowing dropped to about $28.5 billion. Lending tied to leveraged buyouts fell to about $15.2 billion. This is the private credit engine losing speed at the exact moment it needs confidence. And the reasons are not a mystery. Fundraising is still well below its peak. Redemption requests are elevated and still climbing. Investors are scrutinizing loan quality. And borrowers are stuck in a flat, gone-bad economy. For years private credit took market share because it was fast and certain. It could finance deals when the banks and the syndicated markets could not, because everyone assumed the economy would be good forever. That assumption is breaking. Now these funds are preserving liquidity and stretching to get deals done. So they have far less appetite to finance private equity at aggressive valuations. And that is where private equity gets pulled in. It ran on the leverage that private credit provided, and that engine is reversing. Here is the standoff. Private equity firms will not sell assets at lower prices, because that means admitting yesterday's marks were too high. Buyers will not pay peak multiples in a higher-rate, slower-growth world. Lenders will not underwrite the old assumptions. Investors do not want more money locked up. So the whole machine slows, grinds to a halt, and starts to reverse. One guy called it constipation.

Jeffrey P. Snider

18,048 views • 2 months ago

Chamath: “Private equity in general is totally hosed.” 🏢🚨 “I think the history of this is important.” “There was a long standing belief that the best way to generate the best risk adjusted return was to have what's called a 60/40 allocation. 60% to bonds and 40% to equities.” “Over many years, especially when we artificially suppressed rates at zero, a lot of people started to move their allocations away from 60/40 and they started to make more and more investments further out on the risk curve.” “The biggest beneficiaries of that were venture capital, private equity, and hedge funds.” “The thing with private equity is that because rates were zero, they had an infinite amount of borrowing capacity at very little downside to them, and so they were able to manufacture returns much faster than venture capital and hedge funds could.” “So as a result, you had an initial group of people that were defining the asset class, making a ton of money, and then you had all these fast followers that said, ‘Well, if they're doing it, I can do it too.’” “But then always what happens is then you have this flood of laggards that just flood the zone.” “And it's these laggards that make it very difficult to generate returns because they start overpaying for assets, they start mismanaging and under managing the assets that they do own.” “That created a lot of competition, and so that's why you see this hockey stick graph.” “And when you see that kind of graph, it doesn't matter what asset class it is. The returns go to zero.” “And so we've seen this in venture capital. We've seen this in hedge funds. And we're now going to see this in private equity.”

Chamath: “Private equity in general is totally hosed.” 🏢🚨 “I think the history of this is important.” “There was a long standing belief that the best way to generate the best risk adjusted return was to have what's called a 60/40 allocation. 60% to bonds and 40% to equities.” “Over many years, especially when we artificially suppressed rates at zero, a lot of people started to move their allocations away from 60/40 and they started to make more and more investments further out on the risk curve.” “The biggest beneficiaries of that were venture capital, private equity, and hedge funds.” “The thing with private equity is that because rates were zero, they had an infinite amount of borrowing capacity at very little downside to them, and so they were able to manufacture returns much faster than venture capital and hedge funds could.” “So as a result, you had an initial group of people that were defining the asset class, making a ton of money, and then you had all these fast followers that said, ‘Well, if they're doing it, I can do it too.’” “But then always what happens is then you have this flood of laggards that just flood the zone.” “And it's these laggards that make it very difficult to generate returns because they start overpaying for assets, they start mismanaging and under managing the assets that they do own.” “That created a lot of competition, and so that's why you see this hockey stick graph.” “And when you see that kind of graph, it doesn't matter what asset class it is. The returns go to zero.” “And so we've seen this in venture capital. We've seen this in hedge funds. And we're now going to see this in private equity.”

The All-In Podcast

800,205 views • 11 months ago

Private credit didn't blow up because of Blue Owl or bad software loans or AI disruption. Those were SYMPTOMS. The disease is the same one I've seen 3 times in 45 years on Wall Street: Too much money, too much leverage, too little discipline, and a financial product sold as "safe" to people who didn't understand what they owned. Private credit grew to $3 trillion on a simple lie - that you could earn 9-10% yields with "semi-liquidity" on assets that have no liquid market. That's not investing. That's volatility laundering. And the Street dressed it up beautifully. "Private credit." Sounds so exclusive, so sophisticated. Illiquid loan sharking would be more accurate. And don't get me started on "private equity", another Wall Street rebrand designed to make LEVERAGED BUYOUTS sound like fine wine. They changed the name because the old one scared people. The risk didn't change. Just the marketing. Wall Street has always been brilliant at one thing: rebranding risk as exclusivity and selling it to people who don't know what they're buying. Now add oil at $113 a barrel and watch the whole thing come apart. The Strait of Hormuz is shut. The IEA is calling it the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. The Fed held rates steady yesterday and the market just RIPPED AWAY expectations for even a single cut this year. Oil is the fuse. But the TNT was packed years ago. Oil above $100 means inflation stays sticky. No rate cuts. Every overleveraged borrower inside these private credit portfolios gets squeezed harder every single month. Interest coverage ratios deteriorate. Defaults tick up. Valuations get marked down. And when valuations drop, the leverage stacked on top of that leverage (the "back-leverage" that banks provide using those same loans as collateral) starts to unwind. And JPMorgan already started. They marked down software loan collateral and restricted lending to private credit funds. When the biggest bank in America pulls back, that's a SIGNAL. High-yield spreads just surged to 470 basis points. The widest in years. Credit markets are screaming what equity markets haven't fully heard yet. I've watched this exact pattern before. - Junk bonds in the '80s - Dot-com leverage in 2000 - Structured mortgage products in 2007 The product changes every time but the architecture never does: Wall Street creates something complex, sells it as safe, layers leverage on top, markets the yields to retail investors, and collects enormous fees on the way in. Then something breaks and the gates go up. The people who built the machine are fine - they already got paid. The people who bought the brochure are trapped behind locked doors. $265 billion in market cap already wiped from the major PE firms. I don't think we're close to done. And you know what? That's FANTASTIC. Perhaps we'll finally get some real price discovery. Just say no to mark to model. Holders of this fine merchandise will get the returns they deserve. The pension funds, endowments, and insurance companies that piled into this garbage should take the hit. No bailouts. NONE. This nonsense has gone on far too long and moral hazard is the predictable result. The only way to end this insanity is to let Mr. Market operate. Allow price discovery. Allow bankruptcy. No more money printing. No more crony capitalism. No more extend and pretend. Blow it all up. That is the only way. "But what about the individuals who get hurt!" Better to take the hit now and reset than continue down this road. Hyper-financialization is destroying our economy and enriching the fortunes of the few. This must stop. NOW. But I have little confidence it will. We'll get more of the same: Rule changes. Special accommodations. The inevitable big ease will come. Count on it. AND BUY GOLD

Private credit didn't blow up because of Blue Owl or bad software loans or AI disruption. Those were SYMPTOMS. The disease is the same one I've seen 3 times in 45 years on Wall Street: Too much money, too much leverage, too little discipline, and a financial product sold as "safe" to people who didn't understand what they owned. Private credit grew to $3 trillion on a simple lie - that you could earn 9-10% yields with "semi-liquidity" on assets that have no liquid market. That's not investing. That's volatility laundering. And the Street dressed it up beautifully. "Private credit." Sounds so exclusive, so sophisticated. Illiquid loan sharking would be more accurate. And don't get me started on "private equity", another Wall Street rebrand designed to make LEVERAGED BUYOUTS sound like fine wine. They changed the name because the old one scared people. The risk didn't change. Just the marketing. Wall Street has always been brilliant at one thing: rebranding risk as exclusivity and selling it to people who don't know what they're buying. Now add oil at $113 a barrel and watch the whole thing come apart. The Strait of Hormuz is shut. The IEA is calling it the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. The Fed held rates steady yesterday and the market just RIPPED AWAY expectations for even a single cut this year. Oil is the fuse. But the TNT was packed years ago. Oil above $100 means inflation stays sticky. No rate cuts. Every overleveraged borrower inside these private credit portfolios gets squeezed harder every single month. Interest coverage ratios deteriorate. Defaults tick up. Valuations get marked down. And when valuations drop, the leverage stacked on top of that leverage (the "back-leverage" that banks provide using those same loans as collateral) starts to unwind. And JPMorgan already started. They marked down software loan collateral and restricted lending to private credit funds. When the biggest bank in America pulls back, that's a SIGNAL. High-yield spreads just surged to 470 basis points. The widest in years. Credit markets are screaming what equity markets haven't fully heard yet. I've watched this exact pattern before. - Junk bonds in the '80s - Dot-com leverage in 2000 - Structured mortgage products in 2007 The product changes every time but the architecture never does: Wall Street creates something complex, sells it as safe, layers leverage on top, markets the yields to retail investors, and collects enormous fees on the way in. Then something breaks and the gates go up. The people who built the machine are fine - they already got paid. The people who bought the brochure are trapped behind locked doors. $265 billion in market cap already wiped from the major PE firms. I don't think we're close to done. And you know what? That's FANTASTIC. Perhaps we'll finally get some real price discovery. Just say no to mark to model. Holders of this fine merchandise will get the returns they deserve. The pension funds, endowments, and insurance companies that piled into this garbage should take the hit. No bailouts. NONE. This nonsense has gone on far too long and moral hazard is the predictable result. The only way to end this insanity is to let Mr. Market operate. Allow price discovery. Allow bankruptcy. No more money printing. No more crony capitalism. No more extend and pretend. Blow it all up. That is the only way. "But what about the individuals who get hurt!" Better to take the hit now and reset than continue down this road. Hyper-financialization is destroying our economy and enriching the fortunes of the few. This must stop. NOW. But I have little confidence it will. We'll get more of the same: Rule changes. Special accommodations. The inevitable big ease will come. Count on it. AND BUY GOLD

George Noble

100,332 views • 5 months ago

Paul Singer told Jamie Dimon to his face that JPMorgan is "overleveraged and opaque - even my 150 analysts couldn’t figure you out" - Dimon replied: "Paul, with all due respect, hedge funds are pretty opaque too" This is their face-to-face confrontation over who nearly destroyed the financial system, why Singer says banks are still hiding enormous risks, and Dimon’s brutal question: "So why do you still trade with us?" Singer: "When I ask about a firm holding $1 or $2 billion of our money, after weeks of analysis and discussion, my team comes in and shrugs" Dimon: "You probably haven’t read our 10-K, which is 400 pages long. Businesses can be opaque because they’re complex. You don’t know how aircraft engines work either" Singer: "No hedge funds supplied any systemic risk during the 2008 crisis. Many financial institutions didn’t understand their own risks. Neither did their regulators" Dimon: "Paul, you trade with us quite a bit, very happily. Why? Research, execution, capital and price" bookmark & watch the full conversation ↓

Paul Singer told Jamie Dimon to his face that JPMorgan is "overleveraged and opaque - even my 150 analysts couldn’t figure you out" - Dimon replied: "Paul, with all due respect, hedge funds are pretty opaque too" This is their face-to-face confrontation over who nearly destroyed the financial system, why Singer says banks are still hiding enormous risks, and Dimon’s brutal question: "So why do you still trade with us?" Singer: "When I ask about a firm holding $1 or $2 billion of our money, after weeks of analysis and discussion, my team comes in and shrugs" Dimon: "You probably haven’t read our 10-K, which is 400 pages long. Businesses can be opaque because they’re complex. You don’t know how aircraft engines work either" Singer: "No hedge funds supplied any systemic risk during the 2008 crisis. Many financial institutions didn’t understand their own risks. Neither did their regulators" Dimon: "Paul, you trade with us quite a bit, very happily. Why? Research, execution, capital and price" bookmark & watch the full conversation ↓

bodila

661,125 views • 4 days ago

Private credit funds are gating redemptions right now. Not a coincidence. Not a liquidity blip. These funds were built on loans to small businesses, the same businesses getting crushed by input costs and weak revenue right now. When a small business owner runs out of room, the easiest move isn't cutting workers. It's just quietly not paying the loan. Set it aside, deal with it later, hope things pick up. Multiply that across a whole portfolio and you get exactly what fund managers fear most. Investors realize the losses are coming and someone has to eat them. So they gate the doors and lock in shareholders before the redemptions start. This is the same pattern every energy driven downturn follows. Hope you can push through, then hit the tipping point, then it unwinds fast. The labor market is the signal underneath all of it. Watch what happens there and you'll see where private credit is headed next.

Private credit funds are gating redemptions right now. Not a coincidence. Not a liquidity blip. These funds were built on loans to small businesses, the same businesses getting crushed by input costs and weak revenue right now. When a small business owner runs out of room, the easiest move isn't cutting workers. It's just quietly not paying the loan. Set it aside, deal with it later, hope things pick up. Multiply that across a whole portfolio and you get exactly what fund managers fear most. Investors realize the losses are coming and someone has to eat them. So they gate the doors and lock in shareholders before the redemptions start. This is the same pattern every energy driven downturn follows. Hope you can push through, then hit the tipping point, then it unwinds fast. The labor market is the signal underneath all of it. Watch what happens there and you'll see where private credit is headed next.

Jeffrey P. Snider

18,584 views • 1 month ago

For months, everyone called this a liquidity problem. It is not a liquidity problem anymore. It is not just investors pulling money out. It is investors who no longer want in. That is the bigger problem. The whole boom was built on flows. Wealth managers, pensions, insurance, the public. The machine had to keep moving. Now it is reversing. New direct lending issuance fell from 74.6 billion to 44.8 billion in one quarter, per Reuters and PitchBook. A drop of roughly 40%. And the redemptions keep coming. BlackRock's HLend capped requests after investors tried to pull 13%. Up from 9% the quarter before. The run is accelerating. It is not one fund. Blackstone hit its limits. Cliff Water's requests grew. Partners Group capped a private equity fund near 10% of NAV. The pressure is not staying in one lane. Now the public tell. Publicly traded BDCs are not bouncing, even as the market soars. They are the liquid version of the same trade. The bargain hunters are not showing up. That is a buyer strike. And the real fear is the dividends. If you expected 9% and get 4%, why take the risk on the rest? You do not hold the fund hoping Blue Owl turns out right. The stress is spreading. Software loans are down 4.7% this year while the index is up 1.2%. And software sits across both leveraged loans and private credit. Defaults just matched a 2023 high in a 300 billion dollar private credit index. And defaults lag. The amendments, the extensions, the PIK come first. Here is the mechanism. New money slows, old money wants out, so managers protect liquidity. They lend less. Deals slow. Exits disappear. Distributions shrink. Fundraising weakens. The loop closes on itself. It does not need a Lehman blowup to feed on itself. It is not one explosion. It is a system that can no longer clear. The argument from inside is that investors do not know what they are talking about. That this is all nothing. But this many people wanting out, and this many refusing to come in, is not nothing. Private credit can survive bad headlines. Problem loans. Even redemptions. What it cannot survive is a buyer strike, because the whole boom assumed capital would keep arriving. So this is not 2021 anymore. The credit cycle has changed. And the people who asked for their money back were never confused. They were just early.

For months, everyone called this a liquidity problem. It is not a liquidity problem anymore. It is not just investors pulling money out. It is investors who no longer want in. That is the bigger problem. The whole boom was built on flows. Wealth managers, pensions, insurance, the public. The machine had to keep moving. Now it is reversing. New direct lending issuance fell from 74.6 billion to 44.8 billion in one quarter, per Reuters and PitchBook. A drop of roughly 40%. And the redemptions keep coming. BlackRock's HLend capped requests after investors tried to pull 13%. Up from 9% the quarter before. The run is accelerating. It is not one fund. Blackstone hit its limits. Cliff Water's requests grew. Partners Group capped a private equity fund near 10% of NAV. The pressure is not staying in one lane. Now the public tell. Publicly traded BDCs are not bouncing, even as the market soars. They are the liquid version of the same trade. The bargain hunters are not showing up. That is a buyer strike. And the real fear is the dividends. If you expected 9% and get 4%, why take the risk on the rest? You do not hold the fund hoping Blue Owl turns out right. The stress is spreading. Software loans are down 4.7% this year while the index is up 1.2%. And software sits across both leveraged loans and private credit. Defaults just matched a 2023 high in a 300 billion dollar private credit index. And defaults lag. The amendments, the extensions, the PIK come first. Here is the mechanism. New money slows, old money wants out, so managers protect liquidity. They lend less. Deals slow. Exits disappear. Distributions shrink. Fundraising weakens. The loop closes on itself. It does not need a Lehman blowup to feed on itself. It is not one explosion. It is a system that can no longer clear. The argument from inside is that investors do not know what they are talking about. That this is all nothing. But this many people wanting out, and this many refusing to come in, is not nothing. Private credit can survive bad headlines. Problem loans. Even redemptions. What it cannot survive is a buyer strike, because the whole boom assumed capital would keep arriving. So this is not 2021 anymore. The credit cycle has changed. And the people who asked for their money back were never confused. They were just early.

Jeffrey P. Snider

32,147 views • 2 months ago