Is Home Affordability Actually Better Than Headlines Suggest

Semiconductor Stocks Tumble After Microsoft Balks At $3B Oracle Cloud Deal Chip stocks tumbled even further in late Tuesday trading following a report that Microsoft just walked away from talks with Oracle about leasing the company's cloud infrastructure because of concerns over security and compliance.  The deal, according to Business Insider, would have been worth over $3 billion - as large Silicon Valley tech companies are running short on computing power (more on that later).  The plan was to move some Microsoft workloads to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, but Oracle's public cloud did not have the...

Chinese Containership Is First To Pay Iran For "Safe Passage" Through Strait As Iraqi Tanker Crosses With Signal Off The blockaded Strait of Hormuz is getting progressively less "blockaded" by the day. Over the weekend we reported that "Iran was Ready To Let Japanese Ships Use Hormuz As Chinese, Indian Tankers Already Allowed Passage." We can now add Iraq to the growing list of nations whose vessels are transiting the infamous Strait. An oil supertanker hauling two-million barrels of Iraq’s crude got through the Strait of Hormuz, the first vessel observed moving...

Iran Says 'Prepared To End War' If Security Guarantees Offered, But Still No Direct Negotiations - Just 'Messages' Summary President Pezeshkian: prepared to end war with guarantees against further attacks. IRGC warns it will hit 18 US tech companies in region, says Siemens in Israel already attack China, Pakistan issue broad five-point framework for peace (document below); France, Italy begin to block airspace for Iran-related US ops WarSec Hegseth saw "upcoming days will be decisive", strikes will continues without any deal - says "regime fragmenting" President Trump signals off-ramp, tells world "go get your own oil", says...