Good Morning! Bill Ackman filed for a NYSE IPO of Pershing Square, targeting $5–$10 billion at $50 a share. Oracle popped 9% after-hours on an earnings beat, with cloud revenue up 44% and guidance raised.

Blackstone and Blue Owl are taking a minority stake in $16 billion AUM private equity firm Atlas Holdings, while Bain Capital closed a $12.5 billion Asia buyout fund despite a broader industry slowdown. First Brands' restructuring talks collapsed, with creditors pivoting to litigation financing.

Plus: AI's $700 billion data center boom is creating an unlikely winner in man camp housing, Lloyd Blankfein calls DEI programs counterproductive, and why behavior change is harder than it looks.

Daloopa’s Model Context Protocol, MCP for short, enables investment firms to use any AI platform for investment research, with trustable outputs. Request a demo today.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Hedge Funds Discover Geopolitics

Through February, hedge funds were having a strong year. The industry was up more than 3%, riding two months of steady gains despite tariff noise, AI volatility, and private credit anxiety. Then U.S.–Israeli strikes hit Iran on February 28, and the macro narrative flipped in hours.

The losses spread fast. Citadel's Wellington fund dropped 2%, Millennium lost about $1.5 billion, and Balyasny fell 3.5%. The one exception was Bobby Jain, whose fund eked out a 0.1% gain, the only known multi-strat winner on the week, though still down 2.1% for the year.

The problem wasn't a single bad trade. It was a macro regime shift the industry had leaned the wrong way on. Funds crowded into the steepener trade, betting the gap between short and long-term yields would widen as rate cuts approached. Then oil briefly touched $120 a barrel, inflation expectations surged, rate cuts vanished from the near-term outlook, and the steepener blew up.

What caught funds off guard wasn't the geopolitical risk - investors had watched military hardware pour into the Middle East for weeks. It was the speed of Iran's retaliation and how quickly the Strait of Hormuz went from theoretical chokepoint to immediate energy shock.

Most firms remain in the green year-to-date - Millennium up 0.75%, Point72 up 3.4%, Citadel up 2.9% through February - but Balyasny slipped into the red, and the industry's consensus trade is being stress-tested in real time.

Takeaway: One bad week doesn't erase a strong year - Balyasny gained 16.7%, Point72 17.5%, ExodusPoint 18% in 2025. But the Iran shock delivered an important reminder: even the most sophisticated risk machines can get caught leaning the wrong way when geopolitics moves faster than the models.

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HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Paramount x Warner Bros. deal breakdown (Buysiders)

• Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square files for IPO on the NYSE (CNBC)

• Oracle boosts revenue outlook for 2027, shares surge (CNBC)

• Former Goldman Sachs CEO says DEI programs are counterproductive (Fortune)

• Blackstone, Blue Owl acquire minority stake in Atlas Holdings (BB)

• Bain Capital raises $12.5 billion in Asia, Japan fund sprint (BB)

• First Brands creditors shift to finance litigation after restructuring talks fail (WSJ)

• The $700 billion AI data center boom is fueling a boom in man camp housing (BB)

• Iran war raises stagflation concerns on Wall Street (Axios)

• Spirit Airlines to recall furloughed pilots to combat attrition as carrier eyes bankruptcy exit (CNBC)

• SpaceX, gold drive gains at Ontario Teachers despite private equity losses (BB)

• Saba Capital’s Boaz Weinstein warns private credit problems are multiplying (CNBC)

• HSBC scraps work from home for client-facing staff in Hong Kong (BB)

• Trump bought Netflix and Warner Bros bonds at height of bidding war with Paramount (CNBC)

• Oracle is building yesterday’s data centers with tomorrow’s debt (CNBC)

• Netflix goes from M&A loser to market winner without Warner deal (YF)

• Goldman pitches hedge funds on strategies to bet against corporate loans (FT)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• U.S. equities were little changed, with the S&P 500 down 0.2% and the Nasdaq near flat

• WTI crude stabilized near $87 per barrel after briefly surging above $100 yesterday

• Asian markets rallied on hopes of de-escalation in the Iran conflict

  • Japan’s Nikkei +3%

  • Korea’s KOSPI +5%

• European equities also moved higher as oil prices pulled back

• Treasury yields rose, with the 10-year at 4.15% and the 2-year at 3.59%

Economic Data Highlights

• February CPI is due today, followed by PCE inflation on Friday

• Economists expect headline and core CPI at ~2.5% YoY

• Headline and core PCE expected near 2.9% YoY

• The recent surge in oil prices has pushed back expectations for Fed rate cuts

• Futures markets now imply one full rate cut in 2026 and roughly a 50% probability of a second

• If oil prices moderate toward $70–$80 later this year, inflation pressure may ease

Sector Trends

• The technology sector has been a relative outperformer during the recent volatility

• Software stocks have rebounded, rising roughly 4.5% this month

• The S&P 500 is down only ~1% in March, showing relative resilience

• International equities have lagged amid energy price shocks

Movers & Shakers

• (+) SolarEdge ($SEDG) +10% after Bank of America upgraded the solar company.

• (+) Rivian ($RIVN) +4% because the EV maker was upgraded by TD Cowen.

• (–) BioNTech ($BTNX) -18% after the company’s cofounders will depart and start an independent company.

Prediction Markets

• Watch Wednesday: Will the Rolex Index finish above $12,937 in March?

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Monomoy Capital Partners will acquire Jiffy Lube from Shell for $1.3 billion

• AMI Labs, a world models developer led by Yann LeCun, raised $1.03 billion

• Universal Health Services will acquire Talkspace for about $835 million

• Legora, a collaborative AI platform for lawyers, raised $550 million

• Armadin, an AI cybersecurity startup led by Kevin Mandia, raised $190 million

• Uzum, a fintech and ecommerce platform, raised $130 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Bottom Shelf

Description: A deeply personal memoir from bourbon historian Fred Minnick about addiction, recovery, and the unexpected path to purpose. Minnick recounts his struggles with alcoholism while serving in Iraq and how rediscovering a neglected brand of bourbon became part of a larger journey toward healing and meaning. Blending personal storytelling with insights into American whiskey culture, the book explores resilience, redemption, and the power of passion to transform a life.

Book Length: 272 pages
Release Date: February 17, 2026

Ideal For: Memoir readers, whiskey enthusiasts, and anyone interested in stories of recovery, purpose, and reinvention.

Sometimes the path to rebuilding a life begins with rediscovering something small that reminds you who you are and what you care about.

DAILY VISUAL

What Is the Impact of $100 Oil Prices on the US Economy?

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DAILY ACUMEN

Predicting Chaos

We are remarkably good at predicting the wrong things. Not because we lack intelligence, but because precision feels more sophisticated than patience, and most people would rather be interestingly wrong than boringly right.

The honest truth is that complex systems, whether markets, relationships, careers, or cities, do not yield to the kind of forecasting we apply to them.

There are too many variables acting on each other in ways that compound unpredictably. The moment you think you've accounted for everything, something you weren't even thinking about changes the entire equation.

What we can know, if we're willing to zoom out far enough, is the shape of things. Not the details, not the timeline, not the specific sequence of events. Just the general direction that stable forces tend to produce over time given enough room to work.

That kind of knowledge is less exciting to talk about at dinner. It doesn't make you sound prescient. But it has a much better track record than the alternative, which is confidently narrating a story about the future that the future has no obligation to follow.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• Build 3 statement models, DCFs and LBOs in 10 minutes*

• The 10 best markets for homebuyers in 2026

• Why behavior change is so hard to do

• 3 ways to turn overwhelm into a productivity tool

• How sustainable productivity leads to success

• Do you have good listening skills?

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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