Iran, AI Coups, and Private Credit Landmines: Your Weekly Chaos Report
From AWS data centers getting droned to the Pentagon ghosting Anthropic, this week had range
Let's set the scene: Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, up to 3.2 million people displaced inside Iran, drone attacks on Amazon data centers in the Middle East, and somehow $FOUR (Shift4 Payments) still has a Wall Street analyst army yelling Strong Buy while the quant model is quietly screaming Sell into the void. Normal week, honestly.
The macro story is pure geopolitical whiplash. Bloomberg's podcast circuit has been running hot — a former acting CEA chair is out here arguing recessions are caused by shocks, not cycles, which is either reassuring or perfectly timed cope depending on your portfolio. Oil is already spiking on Iran's attacks near Dubai shipping lanes, with airline tickets potentially jumping up to 9% per IATA. Meanwhile the Pentagon officially dumped $AMZN-adjacent Anthropic from defense systems — the CTO called Claude's built-in values a potential supply chain pollutant. Palantir ($PLTR) is watching this very closely, presumably from a bunker with excellent Wi-Fi.
Private credit is the sleeper story nobody wants to talk about: lenders got caught flat-footed by AI making their software-heavy portfolios obsolete, and healthcare funds are apparently hiding software exposure like it's a parking ticket. Somewhere, a risk manager is having a very bad Sunday.