We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
The Greatest Credit Event of All
In just the last few weeks, we've seen two major trades — the Yen carry trade and the short volatility trade — "blow up", even though neither lasted nor took the street down with it. What about the basis trade?
We alluded at the start of the year that the "mother of all credit events" would be a disorderly rise in bond yields leading to dollar debasement. This is the "de-dollarization" that keeps Treasury and Federal Reserve officials up at night — not means of trade being re-routed off the dollar and onto other forms of settlement.
A credit event occurs when a borrower can no longer meet debt obligations, leading to a default, bankruptcy, or restructuring. For example, an insolvent bank being unable to pay depositors in a bank run.
There are two legs to the basis trade: the asset managers who express Treasury exposure via buying futures, and the hedge funds who repo finance cash Treasury purchases. While hedge funds are the marginal buyers of cash Treasuries, it's the asset managers who buy Treasury futures that ultimately hold the risk.
The marginal absorber of cash Treasuries remains the basis trade, but it can run into limits either from a regulatory crack down on hedge funds or limitations on dealer repo financing. New research from TBAC suggests that changes in the credit environment could also threaten the trade.
What asset managers do is effectively take the opposite side of the basis trade by selling cash Treasuries outright and using the proceeds to finance their credit investments. They then add back the Treasury exposure through futures.
That positioning also more directly links the Treasury & credit markets together, as potential losses on credit may lead to deleveraging in Treasury positions as managers de-gross.
It could also lead to liquidity squeezes as managers sell Treasuries to meet redemptions, as credit markets may not be liquid to enough to raise cash. Outside of a systemic or apparent credit event, note that credit spreads have spiked this month.
In the wake of such a risk-off credit event (think: a bank failure), monetary authorities are limited to only a few modes of easing. But the rise of foreign, non-official, unhedged accounts as the marginal buyer for Treasuries means that they are particularly vulnerable to dollar devaluation that results from a policy of easing.
Aggressive rate cuts in the name of providing economic support for example may therefore paradoxically be ill advised insofar as it weakens the dollar against other currencies (like the euro), because said non-official accounts would likely firesale their Treasury holdings as they try to avoid realizing losses, spiking repo financing costs and repo rates as dealer warehousing capacity is pushed to the edge.
That was the case in March 2020, when risk-off paradoxically led to a spike in yields, as Treasury holders aggressively sold their securities for cash. Although this time, it may be to preserve foreign capital against unhedged Treasury losses.
(Disclaimer: this is a theoretical but plausible example).
6/6
Ukrainian forces have begun training and testing exoskeletons for battlefield use. Soldiers from the 147th Separate Artillery Brigade are using them in the Pokrovsk sector for both logistics and frontline operations. The goal is to reduce physical strain, especially when loading heavy artillery shells into howitzers without automatic loaders. Artillery crews can handle up to 1200 kg of ammunition per day, and early tests show that exoskeletons help them work faster and with less fatigue Above all, by improving the conditions for those soldiers on the front lines who handle such heavy loads, plus the stress of work. Seeking to reduce overall fatigue in the troops
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🇮🇷🇮🇱 - 14 wounded in Iranian missile strike in central Israel, according to Israeli media.
🇬🇧🇮🇶 - A drone struck British Castrol oil warehouses in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, causing extensive damage.
🇮🇷🇮🇱 - Iran launched 9 missiles towards Israel this morning alone, with at least 3 of them being cluster missiles.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - Over the past 12 hours, Hezbollah launched counterattacks in Khiam and Qantara, in the Nabatieh direction, southeast Lebanon. Hezbollah recaptured northern Khiam, with fighting ongoing for the south of the town. Hezbollah units also re-entered Qantara; frontline sources reported clashes in the center of the town last night.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - 48 IDF soldiers have been wounded in clashes with Hezbollah over the last 24 hours in southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli Army.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - "The Israeli army is barely catching its breath in southern Lebanon, and its resources are less than in the previous round of fighting," - Haaretz....
🇺🇸 Blue Owl Capital just disclosed that investors tried to pull 40.7% of one fund and 21.9% of another in a single quarter, and both funds gave the same answer, you can only have 5% back, and everyone else waits in line.
This is a bank run, not a normal withdrawal.
Wall Street spent the last decade selling millions of investors on something called semi-liquid private credit, higher yields, steady income and the promise you could get your money back every quarter if you needed it. What they buried in the fine print was what happens when too many people try to leave at the same time.
Analysts who have covered private credit for decades say nothing on this scale has ever been reported before at any major private credit manager.
These funds do not hold stocks you can sell on a Tuesday afternoon, they hold private loans to mid sized companies that cannot be liquidated quickly without destroying the price for every investor still trapped inside.
This product was originally designed for ...
🇺🇸 President Trump wants to switch to war economy in 2027 with massive increase in military spending and massive cuts to healthcare and other domestic agencies
Once a deficit hawk — he said in 2016 that he thought he could balance the budget in five years — Trump ended his first term with $7.8 trillion in added debt. His 2027 proposal is expected to give an update on 10-year deficit projections currently estimated at around $16 trillion.
The GOP's message for the Midterms will be focused on the "need" for a massive defense build up while the Democrats' message will be focused on affordability.
The fiscal 2027 budget will be the first time Trump puts his second-term governing agenda into one comprehensive document — with the numbers to back it up. The budget he released last year lacked detailed line-by-line spending targets and the economic assumptions necessary to project the long-term cost of his proposals.
Investors in US Treasuries will be looking to see if the debt and ...
