This week there's been more mainstream reporting and chatter centered on Iran's Pickaxe Mountain. The nuclear development site has been of special interest and focus to the Trump administration due to how immensely fortified it is, meaning the Iranians can conduct uranium enrichment activities deep under the mountain if they so desire.
The US and IAEA are essentially operating blind on this, and that's exactly how the Iranians want it of course. A Thursday Bloomberg report begins: "The United Nations atomic watchdog said it’s observed construction activity at Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, a heavily-fortified site suspected of housing nuclear-related activities."
Vantor/ReutersIt should be noted that Tehran has long complained that IAEA officials have leaked sensitive information to Israeli spies and leaders. The Iranians see it as a compromised organization.
Bloomberg continues, also referencing its own prior reporting: "The International Atomic Energy Agency has yet to inspect inside the tunnel complex but remote imagery indicates new movement at the site just south of Tehran’s main uranium-enrichment plant, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said Thursday in an interview with Bloomberg Television."
President Trump has on at least two occasions drawn attention to the new reporting this week.
"We notice there’s a little activity at Pickaxe. I would advise Iran not to get cute because we will have to hit them very hard," Trump said in a speech at Wednesday night's midterm Republican convention.
Before this, Trump has threatened major attack on the mountain, though some pundits and analysts have speculated that it would take nothing less than dropping a tactical nuke in order to destroy or at least severely damage the fortification.
Some crazy hawks appear to lately be calling for just such a nuclear escalation from Washington, amid persisting frustration over fierce Iranian resistance and lack of 'options' the Trump administration has left itself with, also with negotiations at this point appearing totally abandoned.
Pentagon build Iran NUCLEAR PICKAXE MOUNTAIN in New Mexico
'ONILY NUKE can damage facility' — Iran Observer pic.twitter.com/M0H6oBlepx
Trump's Wednesday warning to Tehran was coupled with this surprising statement about the war extending to after the November midterm elections: "I think the war will end immediately after the election because they can't hold out any longer," the president told reporters.
He has continued to warn - amid growing public pushback over an unpopular extended war - that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. However even the CIA has long assessed that there's no clear or high-level evidence that Tehran is actually bent on achieving weapons status. But if anything, the war itself may have pushed the country in the direction of getting a nuke.
Tyler Durden Thu, 09/10/2026 - 14:20Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance
The Incentive To Stay, The Psychology Of LeavingHead of Real Estate Nadeem Meghji is leaving Blackstone less than a year after taking sole control of its real-estate business, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.
The official explanation is a desire to spend more time with family. That may be entirely true. But when the head of one of the world’s largest real-estate investment businesses decides to leave after nearly two decades, and less than a year of becoming the boss of real estate, I think investors are entitled to wonder whether the timing tells us something.
His departure follows that of former co-head Kathleen McCarthy in 2025 and comes amid a broader turnover of senior real-estate executives over the past several years. Blackstone has named David Levine and Giovanni Cutaia as his successors, emphasizing the depth and continuity of its leadership bench.
Now that the corporate line is out of the way, the question the ole’ Q-Man finds interesting is this: why leave now, after just being promoted to a position you’ve ostensibly worked your entire career for? Surely when Meghji began low on the totem pole at Blackstone the goal was to find himself at the top of management, reaping all the perks that come with it. So why stay for less than a year?
The company line could be all there is to it. He could just want to spend more time with family. That’s a commendable aspiration as well. But just from a human psychology standpoint, people generally do not leave extraordinarily lucrative jobs when they believe the next few years are about to be the best few years of their careers. They can, and there are legitimate personal reasons to do so. But the financial incentives at this level are enormous.
If an executive believes the business is about to enter a spectacular upswing, with compensation and equity awards potentially worth millions more, walking away becomes a much more expensive decision. Look, family is important….so is millions more in compensation you can use to take care of said family.
I am not suggesting Meghji is forfeiting a specific amount of money. I have no knowledge of his personal finances or the terms of his departure. The point is simply that basic human psychology dictates to me that senior executives understand the value of staying through a major recovery. If they believe the next leg higher is right around the corner, the incentive to remain is usually substantial. BREIT’s investor material suggests there is a long track ahead of recovery for real estate:
There is another reason the timing catches my attention: executives also tend to find it difficult to leave during the absolute worst moments of a crisis. Departing while a business is visibly on fire can look like abandoning ship, particularly when employees, investors and clients are looking for leadership.
The more natural window is often after the immediate emergency has passed, when conditions have stabilized enough that a departure can be presented as an orderly transition.
It could be argued that this “eye of the storm” is where Blackstone’s real-estate business is today. BREIT, the firm’s giant nontraded real-estate investment trust, endured a prolonged redemption crisis beginning in late 2022. Investors wanted their money back faster than the fund could comfortably provide it, and withdrawals were restricted for more than a year.
Those pressures have since eased. According to the Journal, BREIT began meeting all redemption requests in early 2024, recorded its first positive quarterly net inflow in four years during the second quarter of 2026, and delivered an 11% net return over the past 12 months.
Those are meaningful improvements. Why leave at a point where BREIT appears to finally have stabilized and potentially be on an upswing?
I have to ask: what if BREIT is sitting in the eye of the storm rather than safely on the other side of it. The first phase of the real-estate problem was obvious: rates rose, property values came under pressure, financing became more expensive and investors wanted liquidity. The next phase could be more complicated, particularly if interest rates remain elevated and the private-credit problems I have been writing about begin to feed back into commercial real estate.
Real estate is a leveraged asset class. Higher financing costs do not disappear simply because a fund reports a positive return or redemption requests normalize. Loans still mature. Properties still need refinancing. Borrowers still have to justify valuations against a cost of capital that may be materially higher than the one prevailing when many of these investments were made. And now we’re talking about rate hikes instead of rate cuts (though tomorrow’s CPI report will give us more clarity on that).
And then there’s the fact that days ago it was reported that Blackstone’s BCRED private credit fund had to limit redemption requests at 5% of shares outstanding after receiving repurchase requests for ~10% of its shares outstanding.
Private credit, which has been falling apart for the better part of the last 12-18 months, is not some unrelated corner of the financial system. It is increasingly part of the machinery financing businesses and assets across the economy. If credit conditions tighten, lenders become more selective or investors begin demanding liquidity from private vehicles, the consequences can spill into real estate through refinancing availability, transaction volumes and asset prices.
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That does not mean BREIT is about to experience another redemption crisis. It does mean that a period of relative calm should not automatically be confused with a durable recovery. And it means that the private credit portion of Blackstone’s business is worth watching closely.
Blackstone, of course, has enormous resources and a long history of making money during dislocations. The firm manages more than $600 billion in real-estate assets, and its investing BREP funds have substantial capital available. A difficult market can create opportunities for a manager with that kind of scale. But there is a difference between saying Blackstone can eventually profit from distress and saying the next couple of years will necessarily be easy for its existing portfolio.
That distinction matters when evaluating the departure of the person who has been running the business. I am not claiming Meghji is leaving because he sees something bad coming. I do not know that, and the publicly reported facts do not establish it. His stated personal reasons may be exactly what they appear to be. The departure does not, in and of itself, prove anything about BREIT’s valuations, liquidity or future returns.
But I’ll reserve my right to not reflexively dismiss the timing as meaningless. And I’ll also reserve my right fall back on the basics of incentives and psychology.
Whether it means something or not, a senior executive leaving after a long career, shortly after assuming sole leadership, following a period of industry distress and amid an uncertain refinancing environment is a development worth a second mention. The fact that the business has recently stabilized makes the timing more interesting, not less.
Maybe Meghji simply decided he had made enough money and wanted to enjoy his life. Good for him if that is the case. But if I were an investor trying to decide whether commercial real estate was about to enter a new golden age, I would not look at the departure of Blackstone’s real-estate chief and conclude that it was an obvious vote of confidence.
I’ll pass on one thing I’ve learned in my two decades following Wall Street, including a decade working on short/skeptical research. Sometimes the most important thing an executive tells you isn’t what the PR/IR team writes for him or her to say in an official statement on the way out. It’s that they decided now was the time to leave in the first place.
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Tyler Durden Thu, 09/10/2026 - 14:00One day after a blowout 10Y auction, which saw massive buyside demand thanks to the surge in yields earlier after the Bessent buyback disappointed which led to a huge concession into yesterday';s 10Y auction, moments ago we got the week's final coupon auctio when the Treasury sold $22BN in 30Y paper in an auction that was on the verge of blowing away many records.
Starting at the top, the auction priced at a high yield of 5.308%, up from 5.212% in August and the 5th consecutive 30Y auction pricing above 5%. It was also the highest yield going back all the way to August 2001. Just as notably, the auction stopped through the When Issued 5.335% by a whopping 2.7bps, the second highest stop through on record!
The bid to cover was likely impressive, surging to 2.612 from 2.392, the highest going back to February.
The internals were even more impressive: Indirects were awarded a whopping 79.5%, up from 66.9% in August and the second highest on record (only Oct 2024 was higher).
And with Directs roughly in line at 18.3%, down from 21.6% (and below the 22.1% recent average), Dealers were left holding just 2.21%, down from 11.51%, and the lowest on record by a huge margin.
Overall, this was not only a stellar auction, but was perhaps the 2nd strongest 30Y auction on record. And yet, while yields across the curve did dip after the blockbuster auction results hit, the selloff has promptly resumed and 10Y yields are once again pushing wider, set to take out a new multi-year high as they near Bessent's red line of 5.00%
Tyler Durden Thu, 09/10/2026 - 13:36