The Bretton Whoops

Germany, France, UK See Opportunity To Revive Putin Talks Without Washington Europe's most influential powers of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom are trying to again jump-start Ukraine war peace talks, collectively operating as the E3 group. They seek to implement a new framework aimed at engaging Russian President Vladimir Putin in direct negotiations to end the war. Reuters on Wednesday reports that "A window for dialogue is slowly opening between Russia and Europe on Ukraine, ​although it is likely to be months before talks can ‌begin, a German government official...

The Senate on Wednesday voted against advancing a War Powers Resolution aimed at halting further US military action against Iran without authorization from Congress amid the major US-Israeli bombing campaign in the country. The resolution, introduced by Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Rand Paul (R-KY), failed in a vote of 47-53, with Paul being the […]

Existing US Home Sales Plunged In March, Despite Falling Mortgage Rates Affordability-aiding lower mortgage rates battled a sentiment-sapping surge in geopolitical panic in March, with analysts expecting the latter to outweigh the former with a modest 0.7% MoM decline (after January's plunged - weather? - and February's modest rebound). The analysts under-estimated the fear from war-mongering as existing home sales plunged 3.6% MoM (down bigly from an upwardly revised 2.7% MoM jump in Feb). That is the second biggest drop in existing home sales since Nov 2022... Source: Bloomberg That dragged Existing Home...