What we are reading:
This week: the case against a diesel export ban, a $50,000 down payment proposal and what it would do to starter-home prices, a CLO built from two kinds of loans, and a crater found by someone looking for a campsite.
🚢 With diesel at a record $6.53, the White House floated a 90-day export ban. The industry's answer: refiners cannot make less diesel without making less gasoline and jet fuel, and the US ships about a fifth of the world's seaborne diesel. https://x.com/APIenergy/status/2102793865648586990
🏡 A Senate bill would match first-time buyers' savings 5 to 1, up to $50,000, on homes at or below the local median. The side effects: more cash chasing the same starter homes lifts their prices, and the savings must sit at a CDFI. https://www.axios.com/2026/09/23/housing-affordability-down-payment-bill
🧩 Blackstone is working on its first hybrid CLO, one collateral pool holding both direct-lending and syndicated loans, a month after Sona priced the first public deal at €404 million. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-23/blackstone-works-on-hybrid-clo-blending-private-credit-and-loans
⛺ An amateur astronomer scouting a Quebec campsite on satellite maps spotted a 25-kilometer circle. Geologists have confirmed it as a 390-million-year-old impact crater. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260921081101.htm
Our chart: bank C&I loans are up $258 billion since year-end, the most over that stretch of any year since 2020.
