US and Israel launched a large-scale joint military operation against Iran on Saturday, 28th February; Iranian state television officially confirmed the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Germany is losing its competitiveness at ever-shorter cycles. Recent international trade data show that, with this trend, geopolitical options are literally evaporating...

A bottleneck is threatening to spill over from AI servers into broader electronic products, pushing up device costs and adding an inflation impulse that could weigh on risk sentiment. 

United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan report destroying waves of projectiles, including 400 ballistic missiles, aimed mostly at U.S. forces.

The German Chancellor is returning from his three-day official trip to China. In his luggage: a major order for Airbus and the bitter realization that Germany has been run down into an international lame duck. The detailed reception protocol only underscored respect for European history.

"What started as a single stock flinch early in the month turned into an index flinch mid-month, and finished with the first signs of a credit flinch as CDX IG widened 5 points on the week, amid surging put open interest... of all these (and for good reason), the credit flinch worries me the most" - Goldman

It's bad, but it could have been worse. 

The dollar exhibit the strongest negative correlation with the MSCI World index during selloffs. This relationship also holds well during larger equity drawdowns.

For the past couple of years, it has been relatively safe to assume credit is well behaved and relatively range bound. It is unclear if that remains the case.

...the path of least resistance in early March tilts toward further consolidation or a modest pullback before the seasonal tailwinds attempt to reassert themselves.

Years of ultra-loose monetary policy have massively increased yield pressure in private retirement systems... revealing itself in painful losses among German pension funds.

Big Tech is planning massive investments in its own energy generation. Combined with the ongoing AI boom, the massive expansion of data centers is stretching every capital market to its limits, and even the European bond market is increasingly in the crosshairs...

"The market is selling anything remotely credit‑sensitive"

"Bitcoin, which I view as a risk-on type of asset in this situation, has now recovered from small early loss to slightly higher. At the moment, I’m optimistic for a “risk on” start to the week."

 

The way I see it, there are three very different paths that are possible here...

While 99% of the time traders focus on finding the best risk-adjusted growth opportunities over the next six months... we happen to be in the 1% of time when investors are debating terminal value...

"When bank loan funds break bad, “bad events” (CNY deval, COVID, UK pension crisis) happen: proper flush in risk assets... until Fed eases and/or AI capex cut eases credit tension."