Alexander The Great

JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are now offering hedge funds ways to short the $1.8 trillion private credit market. They've assembled baskets of companies with exposure, alt managers, BDCs, and lenders tied to private credit. This isn't speculation. These are structured products designed to bet against an entire sector. Private credit defaults hit a record 9.2% in late 2025. Blackstone's $82 billion flagship credit fund saw $6.5 billion in redemption requests in Q1. BlackRock had to cap withdrawals after requests hit 9.3% of its HPS fund. Morgan Stanley and Cliffwater are also gating redemptions. JPMorgan already started marking down software-related loans in private credit portfolios. When the banks that lend to these funds start cutting the value of the collateral, it forces deleveraging at the worst possible time. US banks have lent nearly $300 billion to private credit providers. The exposure is not contained. Goldman's own data shows hedge funds are "aggressively shorting" financial stocks, the most-sold sector of the year. Financials are down 11% on the S&P. The same banks that helped build the private credit boom are now building the tools to bet against it. If that sounds familiar, it should.