Red Flags
December 30, 2025
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–Yields edged slightly lower Monday with tens down 2.2 bps to 4.112%. SOFR curve biased steeper. SFRH6 unch’d at 9649, but H7 was +3 at 9691, and then things tailed off, with H8 +1.5 at 9671.5 and H9 +1.0 at 9651.5.
–Precious metals were slammed and bitcoin also ended near the low of the day, with several recent rejections having occurred around 91k (Jan futures). SIH6 settled 70.46, down nearly 9%. Barely worth noting, but I marked 10y breakeven at a new recent low 224.8 bps, though the range over the past month has only been 4.4 bps from 225.2 to 229.6.
–Interesting article (original source FT):
Private equity firms sold companies to themselves at an unprecedented rate this year, using a controversial tactic to hold on to assets as managers struggled to find buyers or list their investments.
First reported in the Financial Times, roughly a fifth of all private equity (PE) sales in 2025 involved groups raising money from new investors to acquire businesses from their older funds.
This was up from 12 to 13 per cent the prior year, according to Sinha Haldea, global head of private capital advisory at Raymond James.
If this isn’t a red flag, nothing is.
https://www.cityam.com/private-equity-firms-sell-assets-to-themselves-at-a-record-rate-in-2025/
–FOMC minutes this afternoon. They eased. Further easing is NOT a given as there’s still tension between jobs and inflation. There.
–News reports of corruption involving billions in gov’t handouts to shell social agencies in Minnesota and elsewhere are almost viral enough to make mainstream news. If only there were some agency in charge of rooting out corruption and forcing efficiency in gov’t…
