Dividends don't lie.

January 2026: It’s a Twilight Zone

The opening scene is not calm. It’s a trader’s blur of red screens, urgent whispers, and another earnings call gone wrong. In this market, one offhand word from a CEO can erase a quarter’s worth of gains.

"Every payout is proof you believed in the long game."

Welcome to the era of overreaction—where every misstep is punished. This report is a practical guide for imperfect times. It’s written for investors who still believe fundamentals matter—those who see dividends not as relics of an old market, but as beacons in a feedback loop gone mad.

EYE ON #BDC: ILLIQUIDITY RISK

The story unfurls like a cautionary tale hidden inside a success narrative. BDCs were built to be steady — a high-yield bridge for retirees hungry for income in a world that rarely offers it. Blue Owl understood that better than anyone. It staked its reputation on the idea that private, illiquid credit — bundled, levered, professionally underwritten — could be democratized without blowing up the system. And for a while, that pitch landed with precision. Capital flowed. Prestige followed. The co-founders became billionaires. Then the cracks started whispering. Private credit had boomed on ultralow rates and a banking retreat. Those conditions don’t last forever. Borrowers began to strain under rising liabilities. Spreads tightened. Deals got thinner, riskier, more competitive. And when First Brands Group and Tricolor imploded, the halo around the entire sector dimmed. Jamie Dimon questioned underwriting quality. Jeffrey Gundlach called parts of the market “garbage lending.” The air shifted. Hard. By the time Blue Owl attempted to fold its smaller, private BDC into the larger OBDC — at a moment when OBDC was trading at a 20% discount to NAV — the market smelled pressure. Investors balked at taking losses. Share prices slid nearly 41% over the year. Redemptions surged in the private vehicle, brushing past preset limits. Managers froze withdrawals, promising to reopen them next quarter. Every move felt like tightening a bolt already stripped at the threads. Packer insists there’s no emergency. And maybe there isn’t. The fund has performed. Buybacks are back on the table. A liquidity solution — listing, selling assets, something more creative — could arrive before the April deadline. Blue Owl has navigated transitions before, shedding older BDC models for perpetual ones, turning mergers into exit ramps for legacy investors. But still. The atmosphere around the firm is different now. Sharper. Less forgiving. The market isn’t just questioning the merger. It’s questioning the entire assumption that private credit can scale faster than its own stress points. That liquidity can be promised inside structures never built for mass exits. That underwriting can stay pristine when deal flow is the product. And yet, beneath all the noise, the bigger truth lingers: private credit isn’t going away. It’s evolving, mutating, absorbing these shocks the way every “new Wall Street” innovation eventually must. Blue Owl may stumble, but it’s still one of the defining players of a $1.7 trillion ecosystem that’s rewriting the boundaries between banks and alternatives. For investors, retirees, and anyone watching the slow turn of financial cycles, the moment feels like a pause in a long-running story — the part where the narrator steps back and admits the plot was never as simple as it looked. What happens next will say more about the future of private credit than any bell rung on the NYSE floor..

Data · January 2026

Dividend Screen

This week's 1/9/2026 Dividend Payers for January - we used a screener to ensure a consistent selection process ./DIV2026-January.png (updated 1/9/26).

Open full size Model portfolio

Video Analysis

We discuss the "Twilight Zone" market mechanics and how to avoid behavioral traps.

Model Dividend Portfolio

This model illustrates how an investor might allocate capital across sectors to balance yield and growth. Tailor this to your own risk tolerance.

Market Sentiment (UMCSI)

Why it matters: Inflation expectations are watched closely by the Fed. A jump in 1‑year expectations can push yields higher. Currently, sentiment suggests consumers are pulling back, which is historically bad for bonds but offers entry points for high-quality dividend payers.