🚨 SOLD ALL MY STOCKS & CRYPTO TODAY
The US will enter a massive recession driven by private credit and real estate
Before 2008, there were many warnings of an impending bubble bursting
Act now or regret it forever
Thesis below:
This whole private credit and real estate situation is starting to feel like a massive game of inaccurate valuations of positions.
We’re looking at two simultaneous bubbles, private equity real estate and private credit that are effectively keeping each other afloat through some of the most creative accounting I’ve seen in years
The core issue with private credit is that these funds are basically grading their own homework
If you look at something like Blue Owl’s OBDC fund, over 94% of their portfolio is sitting in "Level 3" assets. That’s finance-speak for "we decided what this is worth because there’s no public market to tell us otherwise."
You’re forced to just trust their internal models, which usually mark loans at par or even a gain, even when the macro environment is screaming the opposite
But the real red flag is the surge in Payment-in-Kind (PIK) interest. Instead of the borrower paying cash, they just tack the interest onto the principal. It’s essentially a high-interest credit card for companies that can't afford their debt service. While it’s fine for a startup in growth mode, seeing it spike across the board is a massive distress signal. Why would a software company willingly take a 4% PIK on top of a 13% rate unless they were out of options? The funds keep marking these as "healthy" assets, but common sense says they’re going bad
Then you look at the real estate side. Back in 2021, when money was basically free, private equity firms went on a buying spree, bidding up properties to levels that only made sense if rates stayed at zero forever. Now that the stimulus has dried up and rates have stayed higher for longer, the math has completely inverted
These properties are operating at negative cash flow, and values have cratered below the debt levels
I’m hearing more and more that firms are finally ready to just walk away and default because they can't sell without taking a 100% loss on their equity
The scary part is that the pension funds and insurance companies invested in this stuff haven't even realized their money is gone yet because the valuations haven't been marked down to reality
The writing is on the wall, and by the time the "official" reports catch up to the truth, it’s going to be too late to move
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