I can't seem to become commercially aware

bumb

Whenever you come across something you don't understand when you're reading the news (concept, event, etc) write it down and then do a bit of research on it. 

As far as "tell me about a deal" you just look up previous deals the company has done, pick one, and then memorize key facts about it (background of companies, reason for deal, outlook, etc). 

That's really it. It's not rocket science and the more you read the more it'll make sense. The tell me about a deal stuff is BS, mostly.

You’re taking on too much IMO. It’s hard to form a coherent picture when you’re overloaded with information. I would pick a single topic you find interesting whether it’s macro, a particular industry, a type of deal, or whatever and focus on learning that inside and out before moving on to the next thing. Eventually you’ll be able to piece more disparate pieces of info together and see things as a holistic whole. 

(Disclaimer: I have never worked in a bank and this is just my own understanding of how things work).

The first time I was able to gain some intuition about financial markets was when I read first chapter of the book "Valuation measuring and managing the value of companies". I will summarise this here in few sentences. Businesses go through different phases i.e. from Start-up/incorporation till they mature and die. In each stage a company has to generate required rate of return for its share holders for perceived risk. Hence the people in industry use the phrase "Increasing share holders value". Your company in order to grow and expand has to gain competitive advantage. More importantly you have to sustain competitive advantage and you do that by either investing in R&D or by acquiring and creating synergy. Depending on which stage of its life the company is the management will make decision to attain required rate of return. But keep in  mind that every company in that sector wants to do that. Depending on the macroeconomic outlook or sectoral outlook companies will engage in various investment decisions. Some will invest in R&D and some will buy/ spin off businesses to create value. Right now macro outlook says that capital is constrained. So the institutional investors/ asset managers are not keen in throwing money in stupid companies. Now I don't know what deal outlook is like right now but If I was a mature business in mature market I will buy out good companies which compliment my conglomerate(create synergy). When economic outlook starts improving then I would have captured most of the market and will be able to deliver required rate of return to investors for at least next 5 years. A good way to think about is that you have to understand motive of each participant in this game. The suppliers, the customers, the competitors and the investors have pre determined motives. Then there is the government and the fed who has their own motive. But then there is unforeseeable risk like covid which can literally change entire landscape. But this is also where opportunities lie for especially for the PE industry. If I was an analyst right now I would go back to what happened in 2008 and figure out how each participant was acting once things start to settle down. One risk is that fed does not have control of the economy like it used to have years ago. So the rate cuts have been announced everywhere but there is some risk with relative to interest rates and unemployment which is holding economy back.