Financials Down on Private-Credit Probe Reports -- Financials Roundup

Published: 2026-04-23 17:58:23 ET BX

Published on 04/23/2026 at 05:58 pm EDT

Shares of banks and other financial institutions fell as traders braced for more credit-market stress.

Treasury yields rose due to inflation concerns as U.S. oil futures topped $95 a barrel in New York.

Shares of Blue Owl, Blackstone, KKR and Ares Management, among the largest private-credit managers, fell by 4% or more after The Wall Street Journal reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission has opened several enforcement investigations of large private-credit managers.

The SEC investigations are part of a broader intensification of regulator scrutiny on the $3 trillion category of investing, in which money managers pool investor capital to lend directly to corporations, just as investor angst has led to capital outflows in the troubled niche, the Journal reported.

The Treasury Department has also requested information from private fund managers and insurance firms about their business models.

Blackstone, which manages a range of private-equity, real-estate and hedge funds, said first-quarter distributable earnings and assets under management climbed. Executives pushed back on concerns about the high level of redemption requests in semi-liquid private-credit funds. These semi-liquid funds are a suitable way to give individual investors access to private markets, said Blackstone Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Gray.

The private-credit managers are likely to remain under pressure if the broader weakness in the stock market persists, said one veteran strategist.

"The negative momentum builds on itself really quickly," said JJ Kinahan, senior vice president for retail and alternative markets at CBOE Global Markets in Chicago. "When people look for something to sell, they look for weakness and this is one area where there's been weakness. I'd be very careful trying to catch the falling knife."

Credit-card lender American Express reported a higher first-quarter profit on the back of continued spending from upper-income customers.

Write to Rob Curran at [email protected]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

04-23-26 1757ET