Christopher Lowe

It's private credit.

It's specifically MFS, which is a big lender making risky loans, the kind of loans that banks don't want to make.

And they do it by borrowing from investors and from banks and

and securing capital, which they then pledge as collateral, they've been accused of double-counting collateral.

And as a result, the banks have pulled funding, and MFS is in the British equivalency of bankruptcy this morning.

That's right.

And people are starting to think it might be a bigger pattern.

And so

What we're seeing in the broad market today, treasuries lower in yield, that's people fleeing to quality, and high-yield debt, what we affectionately know as junk bonds, those yields are rising.

When junk spreads rise, it's a signal to the entire industry, credit industry, that lenders are nervous and pulling back.

from what they perceive as the most risky parts of the credit markets.

Thank you, David.

Government shutdown in a nutshell.

It's because we measure

government activity based on the money they spend.

And usually that works really well.

But of course, with the government shutdown for half of the quarter and non-essential workers literally not allowed to do any work, but still paid for it, well, there was a big increase in spending that did not translate into production.

The best explanation I can come up with, and remember, gold and silver down huge, too.

Big drop there.

These are the assets that were up the most last year in a year where there were massive capital gains.