Private Credit Watch, widened out
The stock market is the part everyone watches. This page is everything underneath it: what money costs, who can still borrow, how much cash is actually loose in the system, and whether regular people are keeping up. Six layers, each scored green, yellow or red, with what every number means.
Real stress in public credit and private credit.
Layer 1
Rates
The price of money
10Y 4.96%
Borrowing for 10 years costs 4.96%. After inflation that's still 2.64%, which is a real squeeze on anyone who needs a loan.
Read more ↓
Layer 2
Public credit
What companies pay to borrow
CCC 13.40 pts
Credit is splitting in two. The weakest companies (CCC-rated) now pay 13.40 points over Treasuries, up 2.47 in about a month, while safe companies still borrow for 0.89. The bottom of the market is getting cut off first.
Read more ↓
Layer 3
Private credit
Loans that never trade on an exchange
Defaults 2.51%
Live prices are showing stress before the quarterly numbers do. Pay attention.
Read more ↓
Layer 4
Stocks and bonds
The part of the economy everyone watches
S&P -2.5% from high
Stocks and bonds are behaving normally.
Read more ↓
Layer 5
Money plumbing
The Fed, the Treasury and the cash in between
Net liquidity $5.80T
The Fed's overnight reverse repo is down to $0.2 billion. That pile used to soak up shocks, and it's close to empty.
Read more ↓
Layer 6
Households and banks
Where it finally reaches regular people
Cards 2.85% late
People are paying their cards and banks are still lending.
Read more ↓
Written from today's data. Each one only shows up when the numbers back it.
Stocks are within 2.5% of their 1-year high, but long-term Treasury bonds are down 11.6% from theirs. The stock market and the bond market are telling two different stories, and usually only one of them is right.
Look at the two ends of the corporate bond market. Safe companies pay 0.89 points over the government to borrow. The shakiest pay 13.40. When that gap gets this wide, money is still flowing, just not to the weakest borrowers. That's usually where trouble starts, quietly, before it shows up anywhere else.
The government pays 4.96% to borrow for 10 years, yet a solid company only pays 0.89 points more than that. Lenders are charging very little extra for corporate risk. That's fine until it isn't, because there's not much cushion left in the price.
The 2-year Treasury (4.65%) is above the Fed's own rate (3.88%). The bond market is betting rates go up from here, not down.
Take inflation out and a 10-year Treasury still pays 2.64%. That's the real cost of money, and when it's this high, borrowing for a house, a truck or a business expansion gets put off.
In 2022, money market funds had as much as $2.6 trillion parked overnight at the Fed. Today it's $0.2 billion. That pile was the shock absorber for the whole system. With it drained, the next squeeze lands on bank reserves instead.
For a regular family, all of this shows up as one number: a 30-year mortgage costs 7.32%.
Layer 1 · Rates
Every loan in the country gets priced off one thing: what it costs the U.S. government to borrow. That's all a Treasury yield is. The government sells IOUs that come due in 3 months, 2 years, 5, 10 or 30 years, and the rate on each one tells you something different.
Think of it as the price of time. Lend for a few months and you mostly care what the Fed does next. Lend for 30 years and you're betting on inflation, on the debt, and on getting paid back in dollars that are still worth something.
Yield by how long you lend for
Normally you get paid more to lend for longer, so the line slopes up. If the dashed lines sit below today's line, borrowing got more expensive across the board. If the right end climbed more than the left, the market is worried about the long run, not just the Fed.
3-month Treasury bill
4.22%
As of Oct 22, 2026
2-year Treasury
4.65%
As of Oct 22, 2026
5-year Treasury
4.78%
As of Oct 22, 2026
10-year Treasury
4.96%
As of Oct 22, 2026
30-year Treasury
5.29%
As of Oct 22, 2026
Fed funds rate
3.88%
As of Oct 22, 2026
Below zero means the curve is inverted: lending for 3 months pays more than lending for 10 years. That has come before nearly every U.S. recession since the late 1960s, and the New York Fed's recession model uses this exact spread. The catch is the timing. The slowdown tends to arrive after the curve turns back up, not while it's upside down.
The version Wall Street quotes most. Same idea, but the 2-year bakes in where traders think the Fed is going, so this one reacts faster to Fed talk and slower to the economy itself.
Split the 10-year into two pieces. Part of it just keeps up with inflation: the bond market expects about 2.34% a year, and that's the breakeven rate. The rest is what you actually earn after inflation, the real yield, at 2.64%. Add them together and you get roughly the 4.96% on the screen.
The real yield is the one that bites. When it's high, money is genuinely expensive, not just inflated, and that's what slows down home buying and business borrowing. From 2010 through 2022 it mostly sat under 1%, so a real yield over 2% is a whole different cost of money than the one most of today's borrowers got used to.
10-year real yield (TIPS)
2.64%
As of Oct 22, 2026
10-year breakeven inflation
2.34%
As of Oct 23, 2026
30-year fixed mortgage
7.32%
As of Oct 22, 2026
Layer 2 · Public credit
A company borrows at the government's rate plus a little extra. That extra is called the spread, and it's the market's price for the chance you don't get paid back. When lenders feel safe, spreads are tight. When they get scared, spreads blow out, and money gets expensive or just disappears for anyone who isn't top-rated.
Credit is splitting in two. The weakest companies (CCC-rated) now pay 13.40 points over Treasuries, up 2.47 in about a month, while safe companies still borrow for 0.89. The bottom of the market is getting cut off first.
Extra interest over Treasuries, and roughly what each one pays in total
U.S. government
The floor. The safest borrower there is.
base
about 5.0%
Investment grade
Big, steady companies with strong balance sheets.
+0.89
about 5.8%
Baa
The bottom rung of investment grade. One downgrade from junk.
+1.46
about 6.4%
High yield
Junk bonds. Companies carrying real debt, often owned by private equity.
+3.40
about 8.4%
CCC and below
The edge. Companies that might not make it.
+13.40
about 18.4%
Totals add each spread to the 10-year Treasury, so they're close but not exact (the indexes measure against the whole curve, not just the 10-year). The point is the gap between the rungs. When the bottom rungs pull away from the top ones, lenders still want to lend, just not to the weakest companies.
Investment-grade spread
0.89 pts
As of Oct 22, 2026
High-yield spread
3.40 pts
As of Oct 22, 2026
CCC spread
13.40 pts
As of Oct 22, 2026
Here's why this layer sits right next to private credit. Private lenders make loans to the same kind of companies that issue high-yield and CCC bonds, they just do it privately, so nobody has to post a price every day. When the public CCC spread jumps, it's the best free warning that private loans are quietly getting worse too, months before anyone files a number saying so.
Layer 3 · Private credit
Private credit is when investment firms, not banks, lend straight to mid-size companies. It's grown into a market of roughly $2 trillion, and because the loans never trade on an exchange, nobody has to say what they're worth until a quarterly filing does. So this layer watches the things that move first: withdrawal limits, loan prices and the public bonds of the same kind of companies.
Live prices are showing stress before the quarterly numbers do. Pay attention.
Redemption gates and daily credit prices are already louder than the quarterly paperwork. BCRED just printed 10% redemption requests against a 5% cap. Insurance companies, pensions, and annuity providers hold a lot of these loans.
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Stored in this browser only (Lovable-friendly). 0 = green · 1 = yellow · 2 = red.
Interval-fund gates and daily prices. BCRED capping redemptions is the kind of tell the Proskauer default index will not print for months.
When wealth-channel funds (BCRED, BREIT, peers) prorate buybacks, LPs are already heading for the door.
10% asked
5% filled · $4.3B · BCRED Q3 2026
Third straight quarter requests topped the standard 5% cap. Q2 was also ~10% requested / 5% filled; Q1 was 7.9% after the board temporarily lifted the cap to 7%.
BCRED portfolio mark
95.4
100 = par. Below ~97 is the public-loan analog of markdowns.
BCRED non-accrual (FV)
1.1%
From the same shareholder letter, which is newer than most BDC 10-Qs.
PIK share of income
5.6%
Cash interest being replaced by more loan principal.
Net outflow / NAV
3.0%
Inflows ~2.0% of NAV
BCRED shareholder letter (SEC 8-K exhibit) · names in headlines: BCRED, OCIC
Green: requests at/under the 5% cap · Yellow: binding cap / multi-quarter queues · Red: halted redemptions or ≥15% requests
BBB CLO ETF (JBBB)
$47.04
+0.06% today
5d -0.34% · lower-rated CLO stack
AAA CLO ETF (JAAA)
$50.61
-0.00% today
Gap vs JBBB 5d -0.38% · risk-off when BBB lags
Baa − 10Y Treasury
1.46 pts
Moody's daily credit risk · Oct 22, 2026
BXMT (Blackstone mortgage)
$10.60
+0.19% today
5d +3.41% · REIT basket +2.18%
Basket 1d -1.79%
BX, KKR, Apollo, Ares, Blue Owl and Carlyle reprice the same day a gate hits the tape. Equity beta, so treat as a thermometer, not a verdict.
| Name | Price | 1d | 5d |
|---|---|---|---|
| BXBlackstone | $117.97 | -0.66% | +10.16% |
| KKRKKR | $91.34 | -1.88% | +4.99% |
| APOApollo | $112.83 | -1.74% | +1.69% |
| ARESAres | $122.08 | -1.31% | +8.04% |
| OWLBlue Owl | $9.36 | -3.60% | +4.46% |
| CGCarlyle | $38.59 | -1.56% | +5.55% |
Sponsor bankruptcies show up in headlines weeks before a quarterly default index.
These print every trading day. They're the closest free read on private credit stress this week.
Lev. loan ETF (BKLN)
$20.26
-0.15% today
5d -0.30% · closest public loan proxy
Senior loan ETF (SRLN)
$39.80
-0.15% today
5d -0.45% · second loan-book check
HY ETF (HYG)
$77.05
-0.06% today
5d +0.29% · public junk-bond cousin
High-yield OAS
340 bps
ICE BofA · Oct 22, 2026
CCC / distressed OAS
1340 bps
Junk-of-junk spread · Oct 22, 2026
VIX
19.0
Equity fear gauge · Oct 22, 2026
Chicago Fed conditions (weekly)
-0.496
NFCI · Oct 16, 2026. Below 0 = looser than average.
St. Louis Fed stress (weekly)
-0.63
As of Oct 16, 2026. Below 0 = calmer than average.
Banks tightening C&I loans
0.0%
Quarterly Fed SLOOS · Jul 1, 2026
Defaults and bank delinquency only print quarterly. Use the tape above for what happened this week.
Private credit defaults
2.51%
Q2 2026
Bank C&I delinquency
1.27%
FRED DRBLACBS · Apr 1, 2026
Bank C&I charge-offs
0.58%
FRED CORBLACBS · Apr 1, 2026
Each one is scored green / yellow / red. Overall status uses the worst combined reading.
Share of private loans where the borrower has stopped paying. Pulled from Proskauer's public press releases. It only prints once a quarter, so treat it as confirmation, not the alarm.
Green under 2% · Yellow 2–4% · Red above 4%
Live BDC prices versus the latest 10-Q/earnings NAV, plus non-accruals as a share of portfolio fair value. It's the closest free 'loans going bad' read there is.
Avg non-accrual: 1.8% of FV GREEN ·
Unrealized dep.: 7.1% YELLOW ·
| Fund | Price | 1d | NAV | Disc. | N/A% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARCC | $18.64 | -0.80% | $19.35 | -3.7% | 1.4% |
| BXSL | $23.33 | -2.43% | $25.53 | -8.6% | n/a |
| OBDC | $10.05 | -1.18% | $14.26 | -29.5% | n/a |
| FSK | $10.44 | -0.85% | $18.30 | -43.0% | 3.8% |
| HTGC | $16.41 | -0.49% | $12.15 | +35.1% | 0.1% |
NAV as of Jun 30, 2026 · 10-Q filed Jul 29, 2026. Prices are live; NAV/non-accruals update when 10-Qs drop.
Discount: Green within 5% of NAV · Non-accrual: Green under 2% · Yellow 2–4% · Red above 4%
Prices: Yahoo (live) · NAV & non-accruals: latest 10-Q / earnings 8-K
When borrowers can't pay cash interest, they pile it onto the loan (PIK). Rising PIK across BDCs is a cash-stress signal.
Quarterly PIK interest across 4 BDCs changed +7.1% vs prior filing period (SEC XBRL).
QoQ change: +7.1%
Green falling / flat · Yellow rising · Red rising sharply (≥20% QoQ)
SEC XBRL: InterestIncomeOperatingPaidInKind across tracked BDCs
How loudly watchdogs and ratings shops are warning about private credit. More frequent headlines = higher risk.
Green quiet · Yellow occasional · Red frequent / escalating
Google News RSS (Fed, FSB, Moody's, Fitch, SEC) · last 14 days
Life/annuity names that often hold private credit. A sharp basket drop plus related headlines is a "why regular people care" tell.
Basket 1d: -3.41%
Basket 5d: +0.48%
| Name | Price | 1d | 5d |
|---|---|---|---|
| METMetLife | $98.82 | -4.59% | -0.76% |
| PRUPrudential | $114.99 | -2.69% | +1.16% |
| AFLAflac | $120.51 | -2.24% | +1.55% |
| EQHEquitable | $52.75 | -4.16% | -0.79% |
| CRBGCorebridge | $34.13 | -4.10% | -0.81% |
| VOYAVoya | $95.81 | -2.65% | +2.56% |
Layer 4 · Stocks and bonds
This is the scoreboard on the evening news. It's real, but it's usually the last to know. Stocks can keep climbing while the plumbing underneath gets tighter, right up until they don't, so read this layer next to the ones above it, not instead of them.
Stocks and bonds are behaving normally.
S&P 500
7,624
As of Oct 23, 2026
Nasdaq
25,955
As of Oct 23, 2026
Russell 2000 (small caps)
2,776
As of Oct 23, 2026
VIX (the fear gauge)
19.4
As of Oct 23, 2026
Long-term Treasuries (TLT)
$81.34
As of Oct 23, 2026
Total bond market (AGG)
$95.96
As of Oct 23, 2026
Corporate bonds (LQD)
$103.85
As of Oct 23, 2026
Junk bonds (HYG)
$77.05
As of Oct 23, 2026
Layer 5 · Money plumbing
This is the part almost nobody looks at, and it's usually the part that breaks first. Between the Fed, the Treasury and the banks there's a pool of loose dollars that greases everything else. When that pool shrinks, markets get jumpy even when nothing in the news changed.
The Fed's overnight reverse repo is down to $0.2 billion. That pile used to soak up shocks, and it's close to empty.
Fed balance sheet, minus the Treasury's cash account, minus reverse repo.
It's a rough gauge of how many dollars are actually sloshing around markets, not sitting parked at the Fed or in the government's checking account. It isn't perfect, but when it falls fast, risky assets tend to have a harder time.
Fed balance sheet
$6.75T
As of Oct 21, 2026
Treasury's cash account
$952B
As of Oct 21, 2026
Overnight reverse repo
$0.2B
As of Oct 23, 2026
M2 money supply
$23.34T
As of Aug 1, 2026
The dollar (broad index)
121.4
As of Oct 16, 2026
Gold
$4,008
As of Oct 23, 2026
Bitcoin
$80,408
As of Oct 25, 2026
Layer 6 · Households and banks
This is the last layer to show trouble and the one that matters most to most people. By the time credit card delinquencies climb and banks stop lending, the stress has already worked its way down from everything above it.
People are paying their cards and banks are still lending.
The share of credit card balances 30 or more days late at U.S. banks. Under 3% is normal. It only comes out once a quarter, so it's slow, but it's an honest look at whether people are keeping up.
Consumer credit outstanding
$5.20T
As of Aug 1, 2026
Bank loans and leases
$14.21T
As of Oct 14, 2026
Banks tightening business loans
0.0%
Fed loan officer survey, quarterly · Jul 1, 2026
Business loan delinquency
1.27%
Bank C&I loans 30+ days late · Apr 1, 2026
Business loan charge-offs
0.58%
Written off as lost · Apr 1, 2026
Every quarter the Fed asks bank loan officers whether they're making it harder to borrow. When that number climbs past about 15%, small and mid-size companies start getting turned away, and a lot of them end up borrowing from private credit instead.
Putting it together
It's one chain. Pressure starts at the top and works its way down, and the lower it gets, the closer it is to a regular paycheck.
The Fed sets the overnight rate.
That's the only rate it controls directly. Everything else is the market's call.
The bond market sets everything longer.
The 2, 5, 10 and 30-year Treasury yields are the market's own price for time, inflation and the government's debt.
Companies borrow at that rate plus a spread.
The weaker the company, the bigger the spread. When spreads widen, borrowing gets expensive from the bottom up.
The companies banks won't lend to go to private credit.
Those loans never trade, so nobody has to say what they're worth until a quarterly filing does.
Insurers and pensions own a lot of those loans.
That's how trouble at a company you've never heard of can end up in an annuity or a retirement account.
Stocks sit on top of all of it.
They're priced against what a safe Treasury pays. When yields climb, stocks have to work harder to look worth the risk.
Liquidity is the grease.
When the pool of loose dollars shrinks, every layer above gets more fragile at the same time.
None of this tells you what to buy or sell. It tells you where the pressure is building, so you're not the last one to find out.
Google News · last 7 days · updated 7m ago
Last 24 hours
Sacramento Bee · 2h ago
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Seeking Alpha · 1d ago
Green means nothing unusual. Yellow means pay attention. Red means the warning lights in that layer are on. Each layer is scored on its own, so one red doesn't turn the whole page red, and nothing gets averaged away.
It's an early-warning check, not a crystal ball, and it isn't advice on what to buy or sell. If several layers go red at once, that's the moment to ask whoever manages your money what you actually own.
Where the numbers come from (all free and public)
A collector gathers all of it every few minutes and saves one snapshot, so the page loads instantly instead of waiting on dozens of sources. Daily layer colors are kept on the server, so the history is the same for everyone.
Feeds that came back incomplete this round: BCRED repurchase letter from cached snapshot