Naturally, the firm reassured investors that everything remains under control—highlighting relative outperformance, solid long-term returns, and the timeless argument that even in a worst-case scenario, losses would be… manageable.

https://x.com/blackstone/status/2035088934753935648

In private credit, it seems, marks are flexible, redemptions are negotiable, and reality is always just a few basis points away from reassurance.

Delighted to be featured again by Hubbis, where The Macro Butler breaks down how gold’s journey—from raw earth to refined bullion—creates real investment opportunities, and shares actionable insights on selecting high-quality mining companies poised to outperform.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/hubbis-turning-dirt-into-bullion

Barely 36 hours after unveiling an “end-of-the-world, take-it-or-leave-it” ultimatum—clearly crafted to impress the most apocalyptic voices in the room—the self-declared commander pivoted on cue, generously extending the deadline by five days. Apparently, Armageddon now comes with a flexible schedule and optional reminders.

The problem is that in a “holy war,” where both sides appear willing to pursue economic self-damage in service of ideological objectives, diplomacy rarely survives beyond the press release. No sooner are negotiations mentioned than they are dismissed, reflecting deeper, unresolved divisions that make durable resolution unlikely. In this environment, it is not if but when the next social media escalation will be carrying increasingly destabilizing implications.

After Blue Owl Capital perched uneasily and Blackstone hit its first speed bump, it was Apollo Global Management’s turn to introduce investors to the fine print—gating. Following years of “stable” levered growth and an enthusiastic expansion from institutions to HNW and retail capital, the private credit boom has encountered a rather inconvenient reality check. Amid rising redemptions—fuelled in part by a SaaS-driven reassessment of credit risk—major players including BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, and Monroe Capital have collectively decided that liquidity is, in fact, optional, honouring only a portion of withdrawal requests. It turns out that in private credit, returns may be marketed as smooth—but exits, less so.

As redemptions and gating accelerate across the private credit space, firms such as Apollo Global Management, Ares Management, Blue Owl Capital, Oaktree Capital Management, and Goldman Sachs are increasingly managing liquidity rather than returns. Apollo’s $25 billion retail-focused vehicle, Apollo Debt Solutions (APODS), capped withdrawals at 5% after receiving redemption requests of 11.2%, effectively gating more than half of investor exits. While the firm reassured investors that “uncertainty creates opportunity,” it simultaneously expanded liquidity buffers, increasing credit lines to manage outflows. Notably, Apollo has already signalled it will maintain similar redemption limits next quarter, pre-emptively managing liquidity expectations. With investors receiving roughly 45% of requested capital—broadly in line with peers —the episode underscores a broader shift: in private credit, liquidity is conditional, and access to capital is increasingly subject to timing rather than entitlement.

Meanwhile, in a rare “nothing to see here” moment for the $1.8 trillion private credit universe, a fund managed by KKR and FS Investments officially crossed the line from investment-grade respectability into junk status. Moody’s Ratings downgraded FS KKR Capital Corp. to Ba1, citing deteriorating asset quality, rising non-accruals (now a stylish 5.5%), and a growing reliance on payment-in-kind income—because nothing says “healthy cash flow” like getting paid in more debt. Naturally, the fund reassured everyone that liquidity remains “strong” and the structure “well-positioned,” which is comforting, given that the rating now politely disagrees. In private credit, it seems, fundamentals are always solid—right up until they’re officially junk.

The "blockaded" Strait of Hormuz is rapidly revealing itself as history's most profitable toll road, with Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Iraqi, and UAE vessels transiting peacefully — transponders conveniently switched off to spare everyone the awkwardness — while the Epic Fury coalition watches from the sidelines it created. The IEA calls it the biggest supply disruption in oil market history; Iran calls it an additional revenue stream. As the Warmonger-in-Chief attempts to ransom his Gulf puppets for $2.5-5 trillion to fund the war that was supposed to close the strait, Tehran is busy collecting passage fees and personally escorting LPG tankers through — running the most lucrative chokepoint in maritime history exclusively at the expense of the allies who started the war to shut it down.

https://x.com/LloydsList/status/2036105743573610701

While celebrating yet another 5-day truce — the geopolitical equivalent of hitting snooze before the next Armageddon — the Warmonger-in-Chief and his partner in war ‘Satanyahu’ are apparently still dreaming of replacing Iran as Hormuz toll collectors, blissfully unaware that the strait is already cheerfully open for business to every mercantilist nation that declined their invitation to the Epic Fury coalition. As Washington polishes its landing craft for the inevitable Friday-after-market-close ground operation — because nothing says strategic surprise like a predictable weekend news dump — the multipolar world has quietly concluded that trade beats war, and is transiting accordingly.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eExy-DOczo0

In a shocking surprise to absolutely nobody, the US economy is now delivering a textbook stagflation appetizer — growth slowing to a near one-year low, input prices surging to multi-year highs, headcounts shrinking, and selling prices jumping at the steepest pace in three and a half years — all generously gift-wrapped by the Epic Fury coalition's holy war. The Fed, that other temple of Keynesian impotence, must now somehow raise rates to fight inflation without strangling a weakening economy — a task roughly equivalent to performing surgery on a patient you are actively shooting.

This helpfully confirmed the obvious: it's stagflation. The Warmonger-in-Chief's greatest domestic achievement, delivered right on schedule.

While the Empire's finest boots were busy lacing up for the next glorious stage of Epic F..ck Up, Wall Street quietly noticed that nobody is particularly enthusiastic about lending Washington money anymore — the $69 billion 2-year auction pricing at 3.936%, the highest since May 2025, with a jaw-dropping 1.8 basis point tail, the worst since March 2023. Apparently, global investors watching the Warmonger-in-Chief simultaneously bomb Iran, ransom Gulf monarchies, and sleepwalk into stagflation have concluded that US Treasuries deserve a higher risk premium. Who could possibly have seen that coming.

It got worse. A bid-to-cover of 2.440 — the lowest since May 2024 — confirmed that the world's appetite for American debt is shrinking as fast as its diplomatic credibility. The real horror show, however, was the Direct bidders — traditionally the "smart money" — faceplanting from 42.3% to a catastrophic 16.50%, the lowest since March 2025, leaving the hapless Dealers involuntarily absorbing 24.12% of the auction, their largest share since October 2022. Translation: when nobody else wants America's IOUs, the banks get stuck holding them. A fitting metaphor for the Epic F..ck Up operation itself — when the plan falls apart, someone else gets handed the bill.

In summary, the once-sacred "risk-free asset" — that cornerstone of every portfolio, textbook, and central banking prayer — has completed its transformation into the riskiest instrument in global finance.

The auction was, in the politest possible terms, a disaster — a fitting tombstone for the era of unquestioned American financial dominance. When the world's reserve currency starts tailing its own debt auctions at the worst levels in years, the message from global investors is clear: the empire's IOUs are only as good as its judgment, and the jury on that particular question has very recently returned its verdict.

In a perfectly timed contribution to the Epic F..ck Up symphony, Russia — controlling 47% of global ammonium nitrate production and 37% of exports — has casually announced a month-long export halt just as the Northern Hemisphere prepares to plant the crops that will feed the world. Because apparently bombing Iran's fertilizer infrastructure wasn't quite enough agricultural disruption for one season, the Warmonger-in-Chief's greatest strategic achievement may yet prove to be not a military victory, but a global food crisis — delivered on schedule, just in time for spring planting.

A distinguished guest list of collateral damage: Brazil feeding South America, Canada feeding North America, India feeding a billion and a half people, Peru, and the already war-ravaged Ukraine — all now scrambling for ammonium nitrate from a supplier that just switched off the tap. The Epic Fury coalition, having successfully disrupted Middle Eastern fertilizer production, blocked the Strait of Hormuz, and now triggered Russian export restrictions, has achieved what no singular military operation ever could: a comprehensive, multinational food supply crisis delivered with the efficiency only a Malthusian agenda could admire.

The Epic Fury coalition's masterpiece is revealing its full composition: an energy shock seamlessly metastasizing into a fertilizer crisis, with a food price catastrophe politely scheduled for delivery 6-9 months from now — just in time for maximum political inconvenience. Former central bankers, and Bloomberg strategists are queuing up to confirm what anyone paying attention already knew: bomb the Strait of Hormuz, starve the farms, feed the inflation. Tsar Vladimir, meanwhile, collects energy revenues, halts ammonium nitrate exports, and watches Western agricultural markets implode with the quiet satisfaction of a chess player who never needed to fire a single shot.

The 1970s food shock was actually worse than the oil shock — a historical footnote the Warmonger-in-Chief presumably skipped while planning the most comprehensively self-defeating military operation in modern history.

The reality of this world is that the architects of perpetual war have never had the inconvenience of fighting one. Neocons, Brussels technocrats, Washington Plutocrats and the broader class of Malthusian strategists who treat geopolitical conflict as an intellectual exercise share one defining characteristic: their own children are never on the draft list. Germany is now moving toward conscripting women — framed, with breathtaking audacity, as a progressive equality measure rather than what it plainly is: a manpower calculation by governments preparing for a prolonged war they have no intention of ending. Caesar led from the battlefield; today's political class leads from the green room. The public, predictably, is not consulted — governments are no longer designing policy around consent but around their own war timelines, and Witch Ursula's public statements are, by definition, the sanitised version.

The cynical truth is straightforward: the people who start wars and the people who die in them have never been the same people, and there is no evidence that arrangement is about to change.