A few charts worth discussing
“Canada was recently above the previous peak in housing affordability seen in 1989/90. While it’s corrected somewhat, affordability still doesn’t look great relative to historical levels. Specifically for Toronto, mortgage payments on a median house are still around 70% of median income, and this likely needs to fall closer to 50% to make housing more affordable for people.”
“None of the largest companies from 40 years ago are still in the top 10, which is now dominated by a single sector: Technology. I wonder how this will look 40 years from now!”
Other charts worth pointing out
Strait of Hormuz – outbound commercial ships
U.S. gasoline – Average retail price per gallon
Chinese refinery operating rates
S&P 500 Index – earnings growth during oil supply shocks
S&P 500 Index – earnings growth by sector during oil supply shocks
S&P 500 Index – earnings growth from AI
S&P 500 Index – Days to a 5% decline during bear markets
Major index price return – as at Mar. 31, 2026
Fund ownership of Mag 7 & AI companies
U.S. AUM allocation – active vs. passive
Blue Owl struck by $5.4bn of redemption requests
Private credit investment firm Blue Owl Capital was struck with a mammoth increase in redemption requests in the first quarter, with investors seeking to withdraw roughly $5.4bn from two of its flagship funds as questions intensify about the health of the asset class and the firm at its nexus.
The company on Thursday disclosed that withdrawal requests at its tech-lending fund, known as Blue Owl Technology Income Corp, had surged to 40.7 per cent of the fund’s $3bn value. Requests to exit the New York-headquartered firm’s marquee $20bn direct-lending fund, called Blue Owl Credit Income Corp, shot to 21.9 per cent of the fund’s value.
The limitation on outflows highlights the risks to individual investors who had flocked to so-called non-traded private credit funds over the past three years in periods of stress. Those wealthy individuals had been promised access to higher-yielding investments in exchange for limited liquidity.
The decision to cap redemptions also underscores the pain being felt at Blue Owl, the relative newcomer to the private investment world, and which now manages more than $300bn.
Shares of the company fell more than 7 per cent in trading in New York on Thursday, taking its stock price decline to more than 47 per cent this year.
The sell-off had accelerated on Wednesday, the day after investors had to decide whether to submit requests to redeem from the two funds. The market had braced for double-digit withdrawals at both vehicles, according to people briefed on the matter.
Blue Owl’s two vehicles, which use leverage to amplify returns and multiply their ability to invest, managed portfolios worth more than $42bn at the end of 2025.
The attempted exodus by investors eclipsed redemption requests experienced by Blue Owl’s largest peers, many of which have already limited withdrawals, underscoring investor concerns with its vehicles.
In the first quarter, investors have attempted to pull more than $19bn from direct lending funds, the popular private credit vehicles that provide loans directly to companies and private equity firms, without a bank as an intermediary.
The funds, which hold investments worth roughly $275bn, have in aggregate honoured just over half of the withdrawal requests they have received, according to FT calculations.
The redemptions will complicate the pitch that private investment managers plan to make as they target the more-than $10tn US retirement system, which the industry views as its next big engine of growth. The Trump administration this week said it would provide new rules to help open popular tax-deferred 401k savings accounts to private investments.
The US Treasury separately on Wednesday said it would seek to meet with regulators that oversee the insurance industry to understand the risks stemming from private credit, a catch-all moniker for an asset class that has ballooned to include far more than corporate loans such as those provided by the Blue Owl funds that limited redemptions.
This week’s fun finds
‘Not a Stunt, or an April Fool’s Joke’: KitKat Ramps Up Efforts to Locate 400,000 Stolen Candy Bars
More than 400,000 KitKats are missing. And no, that’s not an April Fool’s joke.
The company has confirmed that roughly 12 tons of its candy bars, which comes out to 413,793 KitKats, were stolen last week while being transported in Europe. On Wednesday, it launched a “Stolen KitKat Tracker,” asking the public for help locating the missing treats.
KitKat announced on Wednesday that it had launched the tracker on its website in an effort to identify and locate stolen candy bars. A customer can go to the webpage, and then type in the eight-digit batch number on the back of their candy bar. When the customer hits “enter,” the website will say whether the KitKat is one of the 413,793 candy bars that were stolen.
