Oil Nears $100, Private Credit Starts to Crack

Two weeks into this war, the damage is spreading beyond oil. Brent crude is at $99.22 this morning — up 13% from yesterday’s $87.80 close and inches from triple digits. WTI is at $95.83. The IEA’s historic 400-million-barrel reserve release, approved yesterday with 32 countries participating, has done nothing. Oil is up $12 in the 18 hours since the announcement. The market is pricing in a sustained closure of the Strait, and every emergency measure has been met with a shrug and a bid.

But the oil price isn’t the new story. The new story is what’s happening in private credit.

Private Credit Is Gating

Three of the largest private credit funds in the world capped investor redemptions this week:

• Morgan Stanley North Haven Private Income Fund ($8B): investors sought to withdraw 11% of shares. The fund capped redemptions at 5%, returning only $169 million — less than half of what was requested
• Cliffwater flagship fund ($33B): investors sought to pull a record 14%. The fund capped at its maximum 7%
• BlackRock HLEND fund ($26B): redemption requests hit 9.3% of NAV

This is the Bear Stearns hedge fund moment of the private credit cycle. When sophisticated institutional investors are rushing for exits at 2-3x the rate funds can handle, that’s not normal portfolio rebalancing. That’s a loss of confidence.

The stated driver isn’t the war directly — it’s AI disruption risk to the software company loans that make up a huge chunk of private credit portfolios. But the timing is no coincidence. When geopolitical risk spikes and public markets sell off, investors reassess everything. The war is the match; the private credit structure was the kindling.

Morgan Stanley shares fell on the news. Financial sector stress is now a live risk alongside the oil shock. This is how crises compound: an exogenous shock (war) triggers a reassessment of risks that were already building (private credit quality), and the combination is worse than either in isolation.

Three More Ships Hit Overnight

The Strait of Hormuz remains a shooting gallery. CNBC reports three more ships were struck in the Persian Gulf overnight, bringing the total to at least 16 confirmed attacks since February 28. Iran’s IRGC military spokesperson warned: “Get ready for oil to be $200 a barrel, because the oil price depends on regional security, which you have destabilised.”

Transits through the Strait have virtually stopped — down from 80-100 ships per day before the conflict to near zero. This is the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.

Goldman Sachs raised its Q4 Brent forecast to $71/bbl (from $66) on a base case that Strait flows start recovering March 21 — nine days from now. If you believe that timeline, oil is massively overpriced at $99. If you don’t — and the war trajectory suggests you shouldn’t — Goldman’s “extended disruption” scenario puts fair value at $76-93, which means even at $99 the market is pricing in something worse than Goldman’s worst case.

The New Supreme Leader Is a Hardliner

Iran’s Assembly of Experts selected Mojtaba Khamenei — the dead supreme leader’s son — on March 8, under heavy IRGC pressure. He is 56, considered a hardliner with deep Revolutionary Guard ties, and his father explicitly said he should be excluded from succession. The IRGC overrode that.

This matters because it eliminates the scenario where new leadership creates an opening for de-escalation. Mojtaba Khamenei owes his position to the IRGC. He cannot negotiate from a position of weakness without losing the institution that installed him. Iran’s Parliament Speaker said Tehran is “definitely not looking for a ceasefire” and that “the aggressor should be punched in the mouth.”

Trump says Iran’s new leadership has expressed interest in talks. Iran says there is no room for ceasefire while attacks continue. These statements are incompatible. Somebody is lying, and the mine-laying and ship attacks suggest it isn’t Iran.

Trump Launches Section 301 Trade Probes

Buried under the war coverage, the trade war just reignited. The Trump administration launched Section 301 trade investigations targeting 16 economies — China, Mexico, EU, Japan, India, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Thailand. This is the administration’s response to the Supreme Court striking down the IEEPA tariffs in February: rebuild the tariff wall under different legal authority.

Public comment runs until April 15 with a hearing in early May. These probes take months to conclude, so the immediate market impact is limited. But it signals that the 10% global tariff under Section 122 (the stop-gap after IEEPA was struck down) is the floor, not the ceiling. More tariffs are coming.

Meanwhile, CBP is due to file a progress report with the Court of International Trade by 2:00 PM ET today on its plan to refund the struck-down IEEPA tariffs to 330,000 importers across 53 million entries. CBP says it needs 45 days and doesn’t have the staff or software to process refunds at this scale.

Markets This Morning

• S&P 500 futures: down ~1%, Dow futures down 400+ points
• VIX: 25.65 (+5.9% from yesterday’s 25.07 close)
• Brent: $99.22 (+13% from $87.80 close)
• WTI: $95.83 (+9.8% from $87.25 close)

The equity market is finally cracking. Yesterday it ignored the largest reserve release in IEA history. Today it’s looking at oil approaching triple digits, financial sector stress from private credit gating, and a new trade war front — and there’s nothing left to hide behind. The next CPI print won’t save you when oil has gone from $87 to $99 overnight.

Key Dates

Date	Event	Why It Matters
Today 2pm	CBP tariff refund progress report	Court deadline for IEEPA refund implementation plan
Mar 13	PPI report	Producer prices — early read on oil shock pass-through
Mar 14	U Michigan consumer sentiment (prelim)	Will consumers panic with gas prices surging?
Mar 17-18	FOMC meeting + dot plot	Powell faces $100 oil with benign Feb CPI in hand
~Mar 21	Goldman base case: Strait recovery begins	If wrong, oil stays elevated through Q2
~Apr 2	Canada tariff exemptions expire	Next trade escalation risk
Apr 15	Section 301 public comment deadline	Shapes next wave of tariffs
May 2026	Powell term expires	Fed leadership transition during crisis

Bottom Line

Risk level: CRITICAL. Do not deploy.

We now have two compounding risk vectors. The first — an oil supply shock from a war that is not ending — has been the story for two weeks. The second — private credit fund gating as the AI disruption thesis meets a risk-off environment — is brand new. These are the ingredients for a regime shift: an exogenous shock exposing structural vulnerabilities that existed before anyone was looking.

Oil at $99 means gasoline at the pump is heading above $4.50/gallon nationally. That hits consumer spending directly. February payrolls were already -92K. Consumer confidence expectations have been below 80 for 13 consecutive months. March CPI, due in a month, will capture the full oil shock. The stagflation setup isn’t theoretical anymore — it’s happening in real time.

What would change my mind:

1. Iran agrees to ceasefire — not posturing, a public commitment to stop fighting
2. Strait of Hormuz reopens to commercial traffic (mine clearance + insurance restoration)
3. Oil sustains below $75 for multiple sessions
4. VIX settles below 20
5. Private credit redemption pressure stabilizes — no new fund gates

Yesterday I had five conditions. Today I have the same five plus a sixth: private credit must stop gating. We’re moving in the wrong direction on all of them.

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Sources: CNBC — Three more ships struck in Persian Gulf, CNN — Oil prices soar above $100 despite historic reserve release, Bloomberg — Morgan Stanley limits fund redemptions, Bloomberg — Cliffwater $33B fund redemptions hit 14%, Benzinga — Morgan Stanley and BlackRock limit withdrawals, Goldman Sachs — Raises Q4 oil price forecast, CNBC — Section 301 trade probes launched, CNBC — What Section 301 investigations mean, UHY — CIT orders IEEPA tariff refunds, Al Jazeera — Iran names Mojtaba Khamenei supreme leader, CNBC — Mojtaba Khamenei: five things to know, Iran International — Iran says no room for ceasefire, CBS — Trump says Iran at the end of the line, TheStreet — Stocks fall, oil jumps, Bloomberg — S&P live updates