Business

How to work out if someone you know is a psychopath or a sociopath?

Think psychopath and most of us will probably come up with fictional characters like Patrick Bateman, and famous serial killers like Ted Bundy or Jack the Ripper – maybe even Sherlock Holmes comes to mind, when we talk about sociopaths.

But psychologists say it’s actually a lot more complex than we might think, with these two antisocial personality disorders sharing a lot of the same traits.

The term sociopath, whilst often used to refer to someone who is acting in their own self-interest, manipulating others or lacking in empathy, isn’t actually recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a diagnosis in its own right.

Rather, sociopathic traits – like psychopathic ones – fall under the wider umbrella of dissocial personality disorder.

And while sociopathy and psychopathy do share a lot of characteristics, according to Justin Brown, an expert in psychological patterns, there are some important differences to be aware of.

‘People with psychopathy don’t feel much empathy or guilt,’ he explained.

‘They can be quite charming on the outside and fit in easily with other people, but on the inside, they have a hard difficulty making meaningful emotional connections.

‘Sociopaths, on the other hand, may have some idea of what is right and wrong, but they have difficulties controlling their impulses and generally have a history of disobeying laws or having trouble with authority.’

It is also not uncommon for sociopaths to act out more overtly. And with around one per cent of the UK’s population falling somewhere on the spectrum, it is important to know what tell-tale signs to look out for – with a high number of CEOs demonstrating this specific pattern of behaviour.

ut just because someone shows these traits, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a sociopath, but knowing what to look out for can help you to set firmer boundaries.

Experts also believe that these people can change, and if someone is willing to look inwards and recognise these sociopathic traits, they have the chance of making meaningful connections.

Here, we break down the typical tendencies of sociopaths to look out for…

They will be aware of your every move and will never say sorry… and mean it

For centuries we’ve had a strong cultural sense of what a sociopath is: someone who takes no issue with inflicting pain and will manipulate and deceive those around them for personal gain.

From Bret Easton Ellis’ Patrick Bateman to Brontë’s Heathcliff, most of us feel pretty confident throwing this term around – but until recently, science hasn’t been able to offer a true distinction.

But just because someone shows these traits, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a sociopath, but knowing what to look out for can help you to set firmer boundaries.

Experts also believe that these people can change, and if someone is willing to look inwards and recognise these sociopathic traits, they have the chance of making meaningful connections.

Here, we break down the typical tendencies of sociopaths to look out for…

They will be aware of your every move and will never say sorry… and mean it

For centuries we’ve had a strong cultural sense of what a sociopath is: someone who takes no issue with inflicting pain and will manipulate and deceive those around them for personal gain.

But now, brain scans show that sociopaths have different brain chemistry from the rest of the population.

‘Brain imaging studies show less activity in the circuits that generate fear and empathy,’ Dr Caitlyn McClure explains.

‘As a result, behaviour seems reward-focused, planned, and amazingly guilt-free.’

Therefore, it’s not unusual for sociopaths to engage in obsessive behaviour – which at times can culminate in aggression or violence when things don’t go their way.

And unfortunately, for many, this means their hunger for control and power trumps any interest for a deeper meaningful connection, leaving those around them feeling isolated and even gaslit at times.

Which is also why they find it very hard to apologise and actually mean it.

‘If you observe someone who always overlooks other people’s feelings, uses people to obtain what they want, or doesn’t seem to feel bad about what they’ve done, you should be careful,’ Brown warned.

‘Don’t get drawn in and set firm non-negotiable boundaries in your own mind. Focus on what you can control and decide how close you want to let someone like this into your life.’

No long-lasting relationships

While sociopaths have no problem charming a crowd, personal relationships tend to elude them.

This is mostly due to the fact that they struggle to understand and experience deeper more nuanced emotions like guilt, love and particularly, empathy.

And whilst their innate ability to mirror the positive attributes and behaviours of those around them may make it look like they have a lot of friends, when it comes to building more meaningful connections they often struggle.

As Dr McClure explains: ‘Instead of being absent, like psychopaths, attachment capacity is damaged in sociopaths, resulting in spontaneous outbursts that are motivated by frustration.’

This relates in part to how their brains are wired, meaning their capacity for emotional depth is usually somewhat limited, and can make them very unpredictable.

Claire Law, a psychotherapist and legal contributor at Custody X Change, added: ‘Sociopaths can be warm one moment and angry the next.

‘Their reactions are emotional, and they often act before considering what might happen after. This impulsivity makes their relationships more chaotic and unstable.’

They live life on the edge – and will always work their charm for their own advantage

Unlike psychopaths, who tend to be colder and more removed from social circles, sociopaths can be charming and tend to live very successful lives.

This is because they have a ‘naturally low anxiety temperament’, Dr McClure says, meaning that they are biologically predisposed to remain calm under pressure.

So while they may present themselves as an attractive friends, colleague or partner who has your best interest at heart, behind the scenes they are master manipulators.

As Sumeet Grover, a registered psychotherapist, explains: ‘Pulling you into their world gives them power and a sense of grandiosity. And it deflects what is really going on for them internally.

‘Their sense of self is fragmented and so they don’t feel in the same way as most people. They can be very charming, believable and relatable, while often lacking in a felt sense of empathy or remorse,’ he told The Telegraph.

Studies have even shown that in stressful situations, when most people’s heart rate would increase, a sociopath’s will remain the same, or even go down.

This means that they often underestimate risk and experience a delayed response to fear – and big emotions are often the only way they can feel.

Experts have theorised that because sociopaths cannot experience emotion in the same way as people without the personality disorder, they are driven to destruction by a subconscious desire to feel something.

As Patric Gagne, a clinical psychologist and self-proclaimed ’21st century sociopath’, writes in her book, Sociopath: ‘I was starting to understand why doing bad things made me feel…

‘However brief, it connected me to the way I imagined everyone else felt all the time… And we weren’t ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ or ‘crazy’, we just had a harder time with feelings. We acted out to fill a void.’

Daily Mail

Business

Private Credit Investors Rush to Withdraw

The rush for the exits in private credit is prompting fresh scrutiny of the sector’s less-liquid structures and its rapid expansion into the retail wealth space.

Blackstone has become the latest fund manager to be hit by a surge in requests from investors to withdraw from its flagship private credit strategy.

The asset manager said this week it will meet 100% of redemption requests in its gigantic $82 billion Blackstone Private Credit Fund, or BCRED, after investors sought to pull a record 7.9% of assets from the fund, or about $3.8 billion.

That came after Blue Owl Capital said last month it was ending regular quarterly liquidity payments in its Blue Owl Capital Corporation II fund, a semi-liquid private credit strategy aimed at U.S. retail investors. The private credit specialist will instead switch to periodic payouts funded by asset sales, earnings and other strategic deals.

This spike in redemption requests is now putting the private market industry’s courting of retail investors under closer scrutiny, and bringing the mismatch between non-publicly-traded, higher-yielding illiquid assets and retail-style access into sharper focus.

‘A feature, not a bug’

Blackstone — the world’s biggest alternative investment manager, with $1.27 trillion in assets under management — said it was upping a previously-announced tender offer to 7% of total shares, with the firm and employees offsetting the remaining 0.9%, in order to meet the redemption requests in full.

Blackstone Chief Operating Officer and President Jon Gray acknowledged that the risk of private credit firms failing to meet withdrawals, and potentially gating investors’ money, is “not beneficial in the near term” for the sector.

But speaking with CNBC’s “Squawk On The Street” Tuesday, Gray said individual investors and financial advisors “in most cases do” understand the product.

“What people sometimes fail to recognize is, they’re designed as semi-liquid products,” Gray said. “The idea that there are caps is really a feature, not a bug of these products. What you’re doing is trading away a bit of liquidity for higher returns. That’s the same trade-off institutional investors have made for a long period of time.”

Shares of publicly traded alternative asset managers — including Blackstone and Blue Owl, as well as KKR, Ares Management and Carlyle Group, among others — have dipped as concerns over multiple pressure points in the sector have spread.

These include late-cycle loan quality, AI-related risks in software portfolios, and fears of further individual blow-ups following the First Brands and Tricolor implosions last year.

Gray said that lowly-leveraged loans which produce a premium for investors are “a pretty good place to be,” adding that he expects they will continue to outperform liquid credit.

The BCRED fund has generated a 9.8% return since inception in its main share class, which indicates that, for now, the challenge remains one of liquidity rather than performance. Gray said there had been a “ton of noise” around private credit in recent weeks, adding, “it’s not a surprise that investors can get nervous.”

Moody’s Ratings warned that private credit’s tricky balance between delivering outsized returns while also offering retail-like liquidity will continue to be tested as the sector evolves towards the mainstream. In a recent commentary, Marc Pinto, global head of private credit at Moody’s, said funds may need to hold a larger proportion of more liquid, lower‑yielding assets to account for a growing retail presence — which could prove a drag on returns.

’180-degree switch’

Ultimately, the underlying assets will remain illiquid, regardless of the fund’s structuring, said William Barrett, managing partner at Reach Capital. “The retail market has to be conscious of that and not invest in these products the same way it would in an ETF,” Barrett told CNBC via email.

“Private markets inflows have been dominated by the institutional market for decades,” Barrett said. “It makes sense for our industry to now offer our products to retail but we should probably test it first with HNWI [high net worth individuals] and mass-affluent segments rather than making a 180-degree switch to mass retail.”

Barrett said the industry has to carefully select the right target markets for the right liquidity structures and the right underlying assets.

He noted that while there has been little sign of underperformance in the credit space at the portfolio level, “it makes sense that semi-liquid products feel the liquidity pressure first.”

Man Group, the London-listed global alternatives manager which has expanded its private credit activity in recent years,said private credit loans are originated with the “express purpose” of being held to maturity.

“This lack of tradability is a feature of the asset class, not a flaw,” said Andrew Weymann, director, client portfolio manager, U.S. private credit, and Zeshan Ashfaque, senior managing director and senior credit officer, U.S. direct lending, in a note Tuesday.

They said redemption pressure in private credit could also be influenced by another area of weakness: exposure to software-as-a-service companies. Blue Owl is a significant direct lender to the sector, which has been shaken by concerns that rapidly advancing AI tools could erode traditional SaaS business models.

“If retail inflows slow and outflows pick up, particularly for managers most exposed to AI risks or whose capital bases have a significant retail component, this will be an additional headwind for the industry to contend with,” Weymann and Ashfaque noted.

CNBC

Business

Saudi firms raise hiring and pay despite PMI dip

Saudi Arabia’s non-oil private sector lost a touch of speed in February, yet companies continued to hire aggressively and raise wages at the fastest pace since records began, signalling confidence that domestic demand remains intact.

The seasonally adjusted Riyad Bank Saudi Arabia Purchasing Managers’ Index slipped to 56.1 in February from 56.3 in January, marking the softest improvement in operating conditions for nine months. The index remains comfortably above the 50 neutral mark, indicating expansion across the non-oil economy even as momentum has cooled from last year’s peak.

Growth cools, but demand holds

Output growth eased to a six-month low, though businesses continued to report solid gains in activity. Survey respondents frequently cited stronger customer demand and new project approvals, alongside improved domestic sales and stepped-up marketing efforts. Competitive pressures in some markets tempered the pace of expansion, yet order books continued to rise.

New orders remained a central driver of activity, supported by government initiatives, digital development efforts and collaborative client projects. International sales also expanded for a seventh consecutive month, though at a slightly slower rate than earlier in the cycle.

Naif Al-Ghaith, Chief Economist at Riyad Bank, said, “Saudi Arabia’s non-oil private sector sustained its expansionary trajectory with a PMI reading of 56.1 in February, though the pace of output growth eased to its lowest level since last August. This performance was driven by robust domestic demand and a steady flow of new project approvals. Despite the moderation in momentum, the sector remains firmly in growth territory, supported by seven months of rising international sales and an improving volume of new orders.”

Businesses appear to be recalibrating after a period of rapid expansion, with the PMI on a gradual downward path since reaching one of its highest levels in over a decade last October. Conditions remain strong overall, but the data suggest a shift toward steadier, more measured growth.

Hiring surge drives record wage inflation

Employment rose sharply in February, with the job creation rate climbing to a four-month high and ranking among the strongest recorded in the survey’s history. Firms cited increased sales volumes and a build-up of outstanding orders as reasons to expand payrolls.

That hiring push has come at a cost. Staff expenses surged at the fastest pace since the survey began in August 2009, reflecting higher salaries offered to attract and retain workers, particularly in technical and sales roles. The sharp rise in wage bills marks a key feature of February’s data and signals growing competition for skilled labour.

Al-Ghaith said, “A key highlight of the February results was the sizeable increase in employment, as firms expanded their workforce to manage higher workloads and new business inflows. This acceleration in hiring signals confidence in near-term demand, even as overall output growth moderated. At the same time, supply chain performance improved further, with delivery times shortening amid better coordination and operational efficiencies.”

Prices climb amid cost pressures

Rising wage costs fed through to selling prices, which increased at the joint-fastest pace since May 2023, matching October’s recent high. Companies also reported higher supplier charges and increased metals prices. A reduction in fuel payments helped moderate overall purchase-price inflation, while some firms benefited from renegotiated vendor contracts.

Supply chains showed signs of improvement despite stronger input buying. Delivery times shortened to the greatest extent in nine months, reflecting operational gains and changes in vendor relationships. Companies continued to raise purchasing volumes in line with expanding workloads, while maintaining a balanced approach to inventory management.

Confidence steady into year ahead

Expectations for the next 12 months remained positive, with firms linking anticipated output growth to new client projects, firmer demand and supportive domestic economic conditions. The overall picture suggests an economy adjusting to a more sustainable pace after an extended period of rapid expansion.

Al-Ghaith said, “Overall, February’s results point to an economy that remains strong but is moving onto a more sustainable balance. Growth has moderated, yet demand and hiring activity continue to anchor the expansion. The broader trend remains positive, with businesses actively adjusting their capacity while maintaining a high degree of confidence in underlying market conditions. This balanced approach to inventory and staffing suggests the private sector is well positioned to navigate evolving economic dynamics throughout the remainder of the year.”

Consumers and businesses alike face a mixed environment. Growth remains solid, and hiring is robust, yet rising wages and selling prices could translate into firmer costs across parts of the economy. Saudi Arabia’s non-oil sector remains firmly in expansion mode, though the latest data indicate that the breakneck pace of last year is giving way to steadier, more sustainable momentum.

Business

UAE gold prices jump more than Dh10

Gold prices in the UAE surged on Monday morning, extending their recent rally and reflecting a sharp global shift toward safe-haven assets following escalating conflict in the Middle East. The 24-karat rate climbed to Dh646.45 per gram at 8.43 am on March 2, up from Dh636 a day earlier, while the 22-karat variety rose to Dh592.58 compared with Dh589 previously. (Check latest UAE gold prices here, alongside prices in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and India.)

This move marked one of the strongest single-day gains in recent weeks. It pushed local bullion back toward levels last seen during previous periods of geopolitical stress, signalling a renewed wave of risk aversion among investors and buyers.

Steady climb through February

Gold’s rise did not begin overnight. The market has been building momentum for weeks, driven by a mix of global economic uncertainty, strong central bank demand, and shifting investment flows. Local price trends illustrate how steadily the rally gathered pace.

At the start of February, 24-karat gold traded near Dh564 per gram. Prices moved gradually higher throughout the month, crossing Dh600 by mid-February before accelerating sharply in the final week. By February 27, the rate had already reached Dh629.50, and within days it surged above Dh646.

The pattern shows how gold’s trajectory has been shaped by both long-term structural demand and short-term geopolitical shocks, with the latest escalation acting as a catalyst rather than the sole driver.

War tensions trigger global surge

The immediate trigger behind Monday’s spike was a sharp deterioration in regional stability over the weekend. Military strikes and retaliatory attacks involving multiple countries intensified fears of wider conflict, pushing investors toward traditional safe-haven assets.

Global bullion prices jumped sharply in early trading, rising more than 2% before moderating later in the session. Investors responded quickly to heightened risk perceptions, shifting funds away from equities and currencies into gold, which historically performs well during periods of uncertainty.

Energy markets mirrored this reaction. Oil prices surged strongly at the open on Monday, reflecting concerns over potential supply disruptions, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical energy corridors. The simultaneous rise in oil and gold heightened systemic risk across global markets.

Structural drivers remain intact

Even before the latest conflict, gold had been on a sustained upward trend throughout the year. The metal has gained roughly a quarter so far in 2026, supported by persistent central bank purchases, ongoing diversification away from sovereign bonds, and continued investor demand for inflation protection