U.S. markets rocked by private credit worries and potential strike on Iran

U.S. markets had a shaky Thursday, pressured by Washington’s escalating tensions with Iran and renewed worries over private credit.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he will decide within 10 days whether to strike Iran. Concerns over oil supply in the event of military action in Iran pushed oil prices up almost 2% in U.S. trading, and rose further during Asia hours.

Meanwhile, Blue Owl Capital tightened investor liquidity after selling $1.4 billion in loan assets, raising alarms about the stability in the private credit market. Its stock fell nearly 6%, while shares of other asset managers, such as Blackstone and Apollo Global Management, retreated as well.

“This is a canary in the coal mine,” Dan Rasmussen, founder and adviser at Verdad Capital told CNBC. 

The combined set of worries led markets lower. The S&P 500 lost 0.28%, putting it near the flat line for the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.54% and the Nasdaq Composite closed 0.31% down.

In Europe, Airbus stock fell 6% Thursday after the aircraft maker said its deliveries this year would be fewer than analyst expectations. CEO Guillaume Faury told CNBC that the supplier-driven engine shortages are “unsatisfactory.”

But there’s some positive sentiment at India’s AI Impact Summit. CNBC talked to Microsoft President Brad Smith, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Qualcomm head Cristiano Amon about their views on the artificial intelligence industry, semiconductor manufacturing, competition with China, among other topics.

Memory chip shortage is still the limiting factor for agentic AI, Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, told CNBC.

Nonetheless, Nvidia appears to be going full steam ahead on AI companies. The chipmaker is planning to invest up to $30 billion in OpenAI, CNBC has confirmed. That would put the startup at a $730 billion pre-money valuation.

— CNBC’s Ashley Capoot, Spencer Kimball and Hugh Leask contributed to this report.

Blue Owl sold $1.4 billion of loan assets held in three of its private debt funds, the private market and alternative assets manager said Wednesday, curbing liquidity payments to investors. The concern is that years of ultra-low interest rates and thin yield spreads encouraged lenders to make riskier moves.

Japan’s headline inflation rate fell to 1.5% in January, its lowest level since March 2022. The reading ended a run of 45 straight months in which inflation had remained above the Bank of Japan’s 2% target. Core inflation rate, which excludes fresh food prices, eased to 2%.

Shares of Japanese drugmaker Sumitomo Pharma fell over 12% Friday on what appeared to be profit-taking, a day after the government endorsed the company’s iPS cell-based therapy for Parkinson’s and heart disease.

Major U.S. indexes fell Thursday as investors shifted away from financials and software stocks. Asia-Pacific markets mostly fell Friday. South Korea’s Kospi, however, rose more than 2% to touch a record high for the second straight day.

[PRO] Analysts still like Airbus stock despite the aircraft manufacturer providing a conservative delivery guidance for 2026 — here’s why.

India is throwing its weight behind AI — but is there substance behind the headlines?

Three years ago, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told an audience in India, “it’s totally hopeless to compete with us on training foundation models but you should try anyway.” Altman walked back his comments the next day. 

A couple of years later, China’s DeepSeek emerged as a contender to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and chatbots from other U.S. tech giants. Indian citizens resurfaced Altman’s comment, declaring that China had already proven him wrong.

But can India compete with the U.S.? 

— Amitoj Singh