In a nutshell, the ISM Services PMI rose on surging new orders, but weakening employment, shrinking backlogs, and rising inflation suggest the celebration may be ending before the bill arrives.

After private credit introduced investors to the exciting world of redemption gates, private equity has decided not to miss the trend. Partners Group has capped withdrawals from its $8.6 billion Global Value fund after redemption requests nearly doubled the amount investors were actually allowed to withdraw. Apparently, "evergreen" still means liquid—just not necessarily when investors want their money back. As usual, management insists the gates are there to protect long-term investors, which is industry shorthand for reminding clients that private assets are, in fact, private and illiquid. The irony is that the fund reportedly still holds substantial liquidity and access to additional credit lines, yet redemption pressure from increasingly nervous private wealth clients was enough to trigger restrictions.

https://www.privateequitywire.co.uk/partners-group-caps-withdrawals-at-evergreen-fund/

The redemption wave hitting Partners Group comes at an awkward time. Just weeks after dismissing short-seller allegations that some evergreen funds may be significantly overvalued, the firm now finds itself imposing withdrawal limits as investors rush for the exits. What began as a private credit problem is increasingly looking like a broader private markets phenomenon.
The usual suspects—Apollo, KKR, BlackRock, Blue Owl, Cliffwater, and now Partners Group—have all discovered that "evergreen" liquidity works best when investors remain evergreen themselves. Cliffwater's latest redemption requests jumped to 17%, forcing another 5% gate, while concerns over credit quality, AI-disrupted software borrowers, and asset valuations continue to spread across the sector. Partners Group insists the Grizzly report is largely irrelevant and that valuations remain independently verified. Perhaps. But when investors start questioning both liquidity and valuations simultaneously, the distinction quickly becomes academic.

The broader message is becoming harder to ignore: after years of being sold as smooth, low-volatility alternatives, private markets are now discovering that liquidity tends to disappear precisely when everyone starts looking for it at the same time.

While private equity gates the exits and IPOs quietly get repriced downward, the “barbaric relic” continues to do what it always does—behave like a very expensive alarm system for monetary anxiety. According to the latest World Gold Council update, central banks flipped back into net buyers in April, adding about 17 tons after March’s sharp sell-off (~30 tons), the largest in years and driven largely by Turkey.

https://www.gold.org/goldhub/gold-focus/2026/06/central-bank-gold-statistics-central-banks-resume-net-buying-april

Poland is still leading the pack, adding 14 tons in April and bringing year-to-date purchases to 45 tons, with gold now roughly 30% of its reserves. China followed with an 8-ton addition—its strongest monthly intake since December 2024—extending an uninterrupted buying streak to 18 months, and lifting gold to about 9% of total reserves. The Czech Republic kept doing what it has been doing for 38 straight months: buying again, modestly but consistently, adding 2–3 tons. Uzbekistan also stayed net positive on a yearly basis despite a small April sale, quietly sitting near the top of the cumulative buyer list. On the other side of the ledger, Russia extended its selling streak for a fourth month, offloading 6 tons, while Turkey paused after March’s turbulence and showed largely flat reserves following swap adjustments.

Even with the recent rebound, central bank demand is still running well below last year’s average pace—more “supportive bid” than “melt-up engine.” And the real driver of last year’s surge—relentless ETF inflows that helped propel gold above $5,000—has simply not returned. Instead, ETFs remain net sellers, draining liquidity rather than amplifying it. That momentum bid hasn’t vanished—it has just migrated. From bullion vaults to semiconductor fabs and memory chips, the chase for performance has clearly changed asset class.

So, while private markets tighten the gates and public markets trim valuations, central banks are doing what they’ve always done: quietly buying insurance and calling it “diversification.”

As anyone possessing even a passing acquaintance with common sense could have predicted, the private credit gates are swinging shut once again. After a wave of redemption requests overwhelmed nearly every marquee private credit fund in Q1, Q2 is shaping up as a rerun. Just days after Cliffwater capped withdrawals at 5% despite investors requesting 17% back, Blackstone has now joined the club, limiting redemptions from its $79 billion flagship private credit fund after investors sought to pull 10% of assets. Blackstone says redemption requests slowed toward the end of the tender period. Conveniently, that claim will only be testable once the next redemption figures arrive. Until then, investors can take comfort in knowing that the exit door remains available—just at half speed.

https://www.reuters.com/business/blackstone-caps-withdrawals-flagship-private-credit-fund-2026-06-04/

🚨 OIL PRICE MANIPULATION OR BIGGEST ENERGY MISPRICING OF 2026? 🚨

Everyone is celebrating lower oil prices...

Meanwhile:
⛽️ Global inventories are shrinking
🚢 Shipping disruptions are growing
🇨🇳 China isn't even back in the market yet
🛢 Strategic reserves are being drained

And somehow we're supposed to believe oil is headed lower?

When the fundamentals and the price disagree, one of them is lying.

🎥 Watch until the end to understand why the next move in oil could shock the market.

Learn to Earn with The Macro Butler Financial Academy: https://themacrobutler.com/financial-academy/

In yet another payroll report destined to be celebrated across the Washington swamp as proof of economic brilliance, U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose by 172,000 in May, beating expectations and extending the strongest three-month hiring streak in over two years. The catch? Nearly all the job growth came from the usual recession-resistant suspects: Leisure & Hospitality, Government, and Healthcare. Meanwhile, the sectors that actually produce things—or care about interest rates—barely moved or shrank outright. Manufacturing, construction, finance, trade, and information all pointed to an economy that looks considerably less impressive beneath the headline. In other words, the labour market is still growing, provided one defines growth as hiring more bureaucrats, bartenders, and healthcare workers while the cyclical economy quietly loses momentum.

The unemployment rate conveniently remained unchanged at 4.3%, extending its stay above the two-year moving average for yet another month since October 2023—a metric that has historically been less a sign of economic strength and more an early warning that the economy may be heading somewhere policymakers would rather not discuss.

In a nutshell, while the economy quietly revealed that most of the hiring came from government, healthcare, and hospitality as cyclical sectors stalled, unemployment remained stuck at a level that has historically signaled trouble ahead.

🤵 The Macro Butler Weekly Digest 🤵

🌐 The age of drones has arrived—reshaping battlefields, rewriting military doctrine, and creating a multi-billion-dollar investment opportunity in real time. 🌐

Read more here: https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-swarm-drone-age

A little over a year ago, Strategy’s Chief Bitcoin Evangelist declared that everyone should sell everything—perhaps even a kidney or two—to buy the magical digital asset that was supposedly destined to replace the barbarous relic. As with many great financial prophecies, the enthusiasm was inversely proportional to the amount of scepticism required.

https://x.com/saylor/status/1895325810942411234

Fast forward to June 2026 and, with Bitcoin down nearly 30% since that memorable “sell everything” sermon, Strategy’s Chief Bitcoin Evangelist quietly announced the firm's first net Bitcoin sale since December 2022. Between May 26 and May 31, the company sold 32 BTC for roughly $2.5 million. Admittedly, the sale represented just 0.0038% of its 843,706-Bitcoin hoard, but it was nevertheless a curious development from a movement that assured everyone Bitcoin was the asset to buy forever and never sell.

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/06/01/strategy-sold-32-btc-for-usd2-5-million-in-late-may-filing-shows

Until late May, Bitcoin had been one of the war’s more surprising beneficiaries, rising roughly 12% since the conflict began at the end of February, while gold — the traditional geopolitical safe haven — had fallen nearly 14%. By Friday, however, Bitcoin had surrendered all of those gains and more, providing yet another reminder that speculative enthusiasm can evaporate faster than it appears. More importantly, the reversal in the Bitcoin-to-Gold ratio may once again be serving as the canary in the Nasdaq coal mine, signalling that the extraordinary outperformance of the Nasdaq relative to the Dow Jones reached a turning point as the U.S. increasingly confronts the realities of ‘The Trump Stagflation’.

Listen to a summary of The Macro Butler weekly newsletter via podcast on Substack; YouTube; Rumble; Spotify & TikTok.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-swarm-drone-age-podcast

As Trumpian statecraft increasingly resembles a curious blend of capitalism with centrally planned features, Donald Copperfield revealed on June 5 that his administration is exploring whether the U.S. government should acquire stakes in artificial intelligence companies. According to Donald Copperfield, the idea is simple: AI firms become wildly profitable, the government takes a slice, and the public is told they are now "partners" in the enterprise. In other words, after decades of insisting that governments should not pick winners, Washington appears ready to become a venture capitalist—presumably in the name of free markets. A meeting with major AI firms was reportedly scheduled to discuss how Americans could "benefit" from AI's success, proving once again that when profits become large enough, even capitalism occasionally requires a little public ownership to save it.

https://www.reuters.com/business/trump-says-his-team-will-look-into-us-taking-stake-ai-companies-2026-06-05/