New Delhi, April 7 -- There is usually a lull before a storm. Financial markets often mimic such natural phenomena, displaying blink-and-miss signs of disturbance before a full-blown crisis. In many advanced economies, nascent signals of trouble have arisen that could-if left unaddressed-hit global finance and send several players to the sick bay.

In the eye of the swirl lies the US market for private credit-in which private equity (PE) firms deploy private investor funds, leveraged with loans from various sources, to lend outside the formal banking system to sundry borrowers.

Investors have been queuing up with redemption requests at the doors of PE funds-especially those feared to have overlent to AI-rattled software businesses. To ho...