News and my thoughts from the past week (23Mar2026)
Is the housing market going through a correction?
Roughly 111 million people — half of all Americans with a credit card and over 40% of adults — are unable to pay off their credit card bills each month, per MorePerfectUnion
"California housing crash fears as buying rates plummet below Great Recession level," per NYP
Who would have expected the global economy to be affected by a narrow strait?
Germany's largest defense company, Rheinmetall's CEO on CNBC today: "If the war lasts another month, we will have nearly no missiles available." All of them. European. American. Middle Eastern. Iran has been rationing its launches for weeks. The West has been burning through interceptors at full speed. The attrition war has a winner emerging. It isn't who the briefings said it would be. - CNBC
Meta is shutting down its Metaverse, a $80 Billion collapse - Rand Group
Dubai Real Estate
Australian Energy Minister: We only have 18 days of gasoline, 16 days of diesel, and 14 days of aviation fuel - MacroEdge
Private Credit & Private Equity - What’s going on?
Banks have ~$300B+ in loans to private credit funds (Moody's, mid-2025 data), with JPM marking some down amid software strains. Insurers average 35% US portfolio exposure for yields (IMF/Moody's). Interconnections raise contagion risk if defaults spike (UBS downside: 15% on AI/software hits), but it's not systemic meltdown—regulators watching, many exposures managed. Gulf SWFs hit first per that article; banks/insurers next in line but buffered. US banks' loans to private credit funds hit ~$300B as of June 2025 (Moody's/Fed data), plus $285B to PE & $340B unused commitments—part of $1.2T+ to non-bank lenders. PC "lends back" via synthetic risk transfers, partnerships (e.g. Citi-Apollo), & buying bank debt/securitizations. Unknown: Granular counterparty details, off-balance-sheet leverage, exact risk concentrations, & valuations under stress. Private markets' opacity (infrequent marks, complex structures) leaves gaps—FSOC/IMF/BIS highlight this as a monitoring challenge, not full visibility. Regulators track aggregates but can't see everything until tested. - Grok
Apollo down 41%. Blackstone down 46%. Blue Owl down 66%. $265 billion in PE market cap erased. Private credit was the "safe" alternative. Until it wasn't. Private credit default rate just hit 9.2%. That's higher than 2008 bank loan peaks. $1.8 trillion in assets, $100B in secondary liquidity. 18:1 mismatch. When exits close, panic starts.- X user Michael A. Gayed CFA
Private Credit - Rising Defaults
Let us monitor closely. What is going on with Private Credit and Private Equity markets? Are we expecting more frozen withdrawals and defaults?
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