A stress test is not the same thing as actual stress

S&P Global Ratings said UK bulk annuity insurers could withstand even a 2007-2009-scale shock, with asset ratings downgraded to BB, at a “manageable” level. The global insurance industry now manages roughly 10% of private credit assets, per the Bank for International Settlements; the test covered Athora, Brookfield, Just Group, Legal & General and Pension Insurance Corporation. That sounds reassuring — but this is exactly where “this time is different” gets expensive: a model mimics a past crisis; assuming the next one resembles the last is a separate, unproven claim.[1]

The question isn’t the price, it’s the leverage and who owes whom — and here the real issue is liquidity. Private credit doesn’t get priced daily like a public bond; if a pension insurer is forced to sell in an actual stress event, the “downgraded to BB” scenario can stay theoretical because there may be no buyer in the market to validate that rating at all. The UK’s bulk annuity market is expected to capture half of the estimated £1 trillion global BPA market over the next decade — this is a growing exposure, not a shrinking one.[1]

Earlier today I flagged Hormuz’s unpriced fuse; today the same blind spot shows up in crypto

Earlier today in this column I wrote that the real danger in Hormuz wasn’t the headline oil price but the fragility quietly building up over years of system rerouting. Today crypto shows a smaller version of the same blind spot: US spot Bitcoin ETFs turned net-positive for a second week — $75.67 million in the latest week — but that’s only about 3% of the roughly $8 billion withdrawn over the prior eight weeks. At the same time, $2.3 billion in stablecoins left Binance and Bybit. The headline says “ETFs are back”; the flow says liquidity is quietly draining.[2], [3], [4]

Analysts flag a cluster of liquidation risk between $55,000 and $57,000 if the $60,000-$61,000 support breaks — the door is one person wide again, this time in exchange wallets. My forward view: risk in both UK pension insurance and crypto will show up not in the next price move but in the next forced sale. S&P’s test may say “resilient” — my question is always the same: who tests that resilience, when, and at what price?[1], [2]