Futures, Bonds Surge On Optimism War May End, Oil Tumbles Below $100

Housing Cost Pressure Varies Widely Across The EU Housing affordability in the EU has an uneven spread across the continent according to data from Eurostat. As Statista's Jack Lillis details below, the share of people whose housing costs exceed 40% of disposable income ranges from as low as 2.4% in Cyprus to as high as 28.9% in Greece. The EU 27 average stands at 8.2%, but this figure masks significant disparities between countries. You will find more infographics at Statista After Greece, Turkey appears among the most heavily burdened, while countries like Finland, Sweden, and...

Europe Was Once Bigger Than The US Economy. What Happened? The United States and the European Union are the two largest Western economies of the 21st century. Over the past two decades, however, their economic trajectories have diverged significantly. This line chart below, via Visual Capitalist's Gabriel Cohen, tracks the gross domestic product (GDP) of the EU and U.S. economies from 2006 to 2026 using the latest figures available from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s World Economic Outlook. Figures for 2026 are forecasts. The Early Rise and Fall of the EU The 15-member European Union was established...

Wall Street Keeps Testing AI Traders, But Most Are Still Underperforming Recent trading competitions suggest large language models are still unreliable portfolio managers, according to Bloomberg. Tests involving models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI have often delivered underwhelming results: many lost money, traded excessively, and made erratic decisions despite receiving identical prompts. In several cases, models appeared unable to stick to coherent strategies for more than a few trading sessions. Bloomberg writes that one of the clearest examples came from Alpha Arena, a competition created by startup Nof1. Eight models were...