credit-risk
7 articles
- AI Capex Has Rewritten the Fed's Reaction Function
AI investment is large enough to rewrite the Fed's reaction function through the neutral rate and inflation classification, but the funds rate barely touches AI capex. The real transmission runs through spreads and term premia.
- The Fed Cannot Repair a Supply Shock: Why Tightening Into the Oil Crisis Is Stagflation by Construction
The Fed is tightening demand into a supply-driven energy shock. China is already suppressing global oil demand through import cuts and reserve drawdowns, making additional Fed tightening economically redundant and mechanically stagflationary.
- The Two-Layer Constraint on AI Infrastructure
Power and permitting cap data center capacity. Credit markets determine which sponsors can finance projects within that physical ceiling. Hyperscaler balance sheets and guarantees provide the cheapest credit enhancement, concentrating the buildout among a few large platforms.
- China’s Balance-Sheet Transfer: Weak Consumption and Chip Exports Are the Same Story
China has not repaired its growth model; it has redistributed the losses. Property damage and weak consumption are being absorbed by banks, local governments, state capital, public investors, and export-credit vehicles, while external demand remains the only load-bearing growth channel. The key risk is what happens if that export valve narrows.
- The AI Buildout Is Real. The Credit Structure Is the Risk.
AI infrastructure is a real technology cycle wrapped in a leveraged-finance structure. Demand risk is moving from hyperscalers to banks, insurers, and bondholders through SPVs, GPU-backed debt, securitization, and synthetic risk transfer, making utilization, covenants, refinancing, and collateral the earliest signals of overcapacity.
- Basel III 2026: The Repricing of Bank Intermediation
The March 2026 Basel III reproposal lowers bank capital costs for mortgages, securitization, fee businesses, and scaled trading, but offers little relief for middle-market corporate credit. Risk remains in private markets while banks increasingly finance it through senior fund-finance structures.
- The Yield Curve Is Not Broken: What the Term Premium Is Actually Pricing
The yield curve decomposition holds mechanically — but the term premium has returned as the dominant driver. What it is pricing, why fiscal dominance is a live concern but not yet the operative regime, and what it means for duration positioning.