Foreclosures on VA loans are at their highest level in a decade. VA has a fix but it is months away and could still leave vets worse off than most other homeowners. (Image credit: Margaret Albaugh for NPR)
Foreclosures on VA loans are at their highest level in a decade. VA has a fix but it is months away and could still leave vets worse off than most other homeowners. (Image credit: Margaret Albaugh for NPR)
Banks should prepare to tap regular loan offers by the European Central Bank as quantitative tightening proceeds and liquidity sloshing around the financial system shrinks, according to a blog post published Thursday. The post cites an annual survey of bank treasurers showing lenders representing a quarter of euro-area banking assets operate close to their preferred level of reserves — as opposed ...
Banks should prepare to tap regular loan offers by the European Central Bank as quantitative tightening proceeds and liquidity sloshing around the financial system shrinks, according to a blog post published Thursday. The post cites an annual survey of bank treasurers showing lenders representing a quarter of euro-area banking assets operate close to their preferred level of reserves — as opposed to enjoying an abundance — up from 15% a year earlier. That share is set to climb to 50% by year-end. “As reserves continue to decline, it will be important for banks to be ready to use Eurosystem operations as routine tools to manage their liquidity and to support market-making,” economists Vagia Iskaki , Tobias Linzert, and Yannik Schneider, Marta Skrzypinska and Olivier Vergote wrote. After years of crisis-fighting that involved long-term lending and large-scale asset purchases, the ECB is preparing a transition to a regime where reserves are primarily defined by banks’ needs. Excess liquidity peaked at €4.7 trillion ($5.4 trillion) in late 2022 and has since halved after loans expired and reinvestments of maturing bonds stopped. While recourse to the ECB’s standard weekly and three-months operations has remained low, the number of bidders has gradually increased. Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel has been among officials encouraging banks to use such offers routinely. In the blog post, the economists also studied money markets and found that reserves are redistributed smoothly across banks and euro-area countries, without any signs of fragmentation. Banks closest to their preferred reserve levels borrow the most in the short-term repo markets relative to their reserves, the authors wrote. While short-term market rates remain near the ECB’s deposit rate of 2%, any future upward moves — especially in the term segment where banks borrow and lend for longer than 30 calendar days — could be an “early indicator of changing system-wide liquidity needs and as a benchmark f...
Mayzee Davies returns to the Wales squad for this month's World Cup qualifiers against Albania but there is no place for injured goalkeeper Olivia Clark.
Mayzee Davies returns to the Wales squad for this month's World Cup qualifiers against Albania but there is no place for injured goalkeeper Olivia Clark.
Solar Installations Fell 22% In 2025 By Diana DiGangi of UtilityDive , Solar developers installed 26.5 GW last year, down 22% from the 33.8 GW they installed in 2024, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The decline in solar installations took place despite the ongoing rush to bring projects online in order to qualify for the Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, which had ...
Solar Installations Fell 22% In 2025 By Diana DiGangi of UtilityDive , Solar developers installed 26.5 GW last year, down 22% from the 33.8 GW they installed in 2024, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The decline in solar installations took place despite the ongoing rush to bring projects online in order to qualify for the Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, which had their timelines curtailed by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Despite this decrease, solar still led all other generation sources in 2025 installations. As of December, solar now makes up 12.2% of installed generating capacity in the U.S., according to FERC — trailing only natural gas, at 42.2%, and coal, at 14.3%. SEIA noted that in the first three quarters of 2025, solar installations remained largely the same year over year, “but in the fourth quarter, volumes fell by nearly 40% year-over-year. By the end of 2025, installations totaled just under 35 GW as many utility-scale projects were delayed into 2026 and 2027.” “As developers shifted their focus towards safe harbor strategies, there was less urgency to bring late-stage projects online by year end,” SEIA said. “This weakened fourth quarter deployment but created a more robust near-term pipeline for 2026 and 2027.” FERC’s data shows that natural gas added fewer units in 2025 — 84, compared with to 122 the previous year — despite a 1.5 GW increase in installed capacity. Wind capacity also grew as developers added 5.7 GW in 2025 compared with 4.5 GW the previous year. No new nuclear capacity came online in 2025. U.S. nuclear capacity increased 1.1 GW in 2024, when Plant Vogtle Unit 4 came online in April that year. In 2025, the U.S. solar industry “ navigated unprecedented change, ranging from numerous trade actions to the reversal of renewable energy tax credit policy,” the Solar Energy Industries Association said in a March 9 report. “ Many projects stayed on track, but the market and policy uncertainty took a toll, le...
Renewable energy developer Neoen will build France’s largest battery, helping to store rising solar and wind generation and ease strain on the country’s grid. Construction of the 248-megawatt battery — which will have 496 megawatt-hours of capacity — is scheduled to begin this summer, with operation expected in 2028, Neoen, controlled by Brookfield Asset Management , said in a statement . Japan’s ...
Renewable energy developer Neoen will build France’s largest battery, helping to store rising solar and wind generation and ease strain on the country’s grid. Construction of the 248-megawatt battery — which will have 496 megawatt-hours of capacity — is scheduled to begin this summer, with operation expected in 2028, Neoen, controlled by Brookfield Asset Management , said in a statement . Japan’s Nidec will assemble the battery packs in France. Demand for battery storage is growing in France, and other parts of Europe, as power gluts become increasingly frequent due more solar and wind generation that can exceed demand during parts of the day. That’s leading to curbs in French nuclear and renewable output, making grid balancing more challenging, and causing big swings in prices — including to below zero. The new battery will provide frequency and voltage regulation services to the French grid and help relieve congestion of the network in the Paris region, according to the statement Installed battery storage in France rose 35% last year 1.61 gigawatts, according to grid operator RTE data . EDF Warns Solar, Wind Surge Straining Nuclear Fleet Costs French Grid Operator Sees Power Oversupply Lasting Years Energy Traders Bet On Batteries to Harness Negative Prices
Damage caused by the US’s war against Iran will continue to have a negative impact on the global economy even if hostilities end soon, according to European Central Bank Governing Council member Fabio Panetta . “The ongoing conflict is already causing unprecedented disruptions in global energy supply chains and its spread to the Gulf countries has forced some of them to suspend hydrocarbon product...
Damage caused by the US’s war against Iran will continue to have a negative impact on the global economy even if hostilities end soon, according to European Central Bank Governing Council member Fabio Panetta . “The ongoing conflict is already causing unprecedented disruptions in global energy supply chains and its spread to the Gulf countries has forced some of them to suspend hydrocarbon production, with immediate and potentially lasting effects on international markets,” said Panetta, who also heads the Bank of Italy. “Even assuming a rapid stop to hostilities, the return to normal production would be slow,” he said Thursday in Rome. The conflict launched on Feb. 28 by the US and Israel has sowed anxiety over how badly spiraling energy costs will drive inflation and weigh on economic expansion. Panetta joined other ECB officials in warning that the base scenario for fallout in Europe may no longer hold. “The ECB’s macroeconomic projections, released two weeks ago, already included two adverse scenarios, which are now more likely than they were at the time of publication,” he said. “In the second, more severe scenario, damage to infrastructure would delay the recovery until 2027.” Irish central banker Gabriel Makhlouf said this week that a lengthy war would steer the euro-area economy toward a worse outcome than the base case. His Slovenian counterpart Primoz Dolenc said the adverse scenario was likely to become the new baseline. ECB’s Makhlouf Says Prolonged War Brings Adverse Scenario Closer ECB’s Muller Says Probable Rates Will Rise in Coming Quarters ECB Shouldn’t Rush Iran Response or Overreact, Schnabel Says
Some of the world’s biggest hedge funds known for delivering steady returns lost money in March as the war in the Middle East roiled markets across energy, bonds and equities and forced traders to unwind crowded positions. Multistrategy hedge funds ranging from ExodusPoint Capital Management to Balyasny Asset Management and Millennium Management posted declines, giving up all or part of their gain...
Some of the world’s biggest hedge funds known for delivering steady returns lost money in March as the war in the Middle East roiled markets across energy, bonds and equities and forced traders to unwind crowded positions. Multistrategy hedge funds ranging from ExodusPoint Capital Management to Balyasny Asset Management and Millennium Management posted declines, giving up all or part of their gains from the prior two months, according to people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because the details are private. There were, however, some notable winners such as Kepos Capital ’s Alpha fund and Swiss firm ADAPT Investment Managers . The escalating conflict that choked off shipping traffic through the crucial Strait of Hormuz sent oil prices surging, while fears over inflation upended interest rate expectations and triggered a bond selloff. Earlier in March, JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists said hedge funds experienced their biggest drawdown since the Liberation Day tariff turmoil, with commodity trading advisers hit by their worst stretch in almost a year and equity long-short funds posting heavy losses due to overweight positions in European stocks. Here are estimated returns for some hedge funds: Kepos Alpha Systematic Macro 7.5% 9.3% ADAPT* Relative Value 4.1 8.3 Winton Multistrategy 0.3 6.7 Centiva Multistrategy 0.1 3.9 Schonfeld Fundamental Equity Multimanager equity 0 1.6 Schonfeld Strategic Partners Multistrategy 0 0.9 Kite Lake Special Opportunities Event-Driven -0.1 2.5 Modular Asian Macro Macro -0.5 2.9 North Rock Multimanager - Equities -0.7 2.1 Millennium Multistrategy -1.2 1 Walleye Multistrategy -1.3 -2.6 Man Strategies 1783 Multistrategy -1.6 4.2 Brummer Multi-Strategy Multistrategy -1.9 4.3 LMR Multistrategy -2.4 -0.3 Pinpoint Multi-Strategy Multistrategy -2.5 4.0 Dymon Multistrategy -4.3 6.0 Balyasny Multistrategy -4.3 -3.8 ExodusPoint Multistrategy -4.5 -2 Coatue Equity -4.8 -3.5 FengHe Asia Equity Long/Short -5.3 11.5 Pharo M...
Beijing calls on cities to join global industrial cooperation network China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is inviting domestic cities to apply to join a new international partner-city network on industrial transformation, part of a broader initiative launched with government agencies from 19 countries. The initiative aims to promote global cooperation in areas such as digital t...
Beijing calls on cities to join global industrial cooperation network China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is inviting domestic cities to apply to join a new international partner-city network on industrial transformation, part of a broader initiative launched with government agencies from 19 countries. The initiative aims to promote global cooperation in areas such as digital transformation, green and low-carbon development, supply chain coordination, innovation resource sharing, SME support and talent development. The final list of the selected cities will be unveiled at a BRICS forum scheduled to be held in May.
The past month and quarter were rocky ones for investors as they faced a wall of uncertainties -- from the potential of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven growth to the future of the war in Iran. The S&P 500 swung from gains on any positive news to losses on any negative signs, and a famous volatility benchmark -- the VIX -- soared, suggesting that investors were feeling fearful. As a result, the...
The past month and quarter were rocky ones for investors as they faced a wall of uncertainties -- from the potential of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven growth to the future of the war in Iran. The S&P 500 swung from gains on any positive news to losses on any negative signs, and a famous volatility benchmark -- the VIX -- soared, suggesting that investors were feeling fearful. As a result, the S&P 500 completed a losing month and quarter, declining 5% and 4.6%, respectively. But the situation was much brighter just a short time ago. The benchmark extended its bull market run into three years as of October, and over the past three calendar years, it advanced 78%. This was as investors piled into growth stocks, particularly in areas such as AI and quantum computing -- they were looking for the next big thing in tech, and many of these tech stocks delivered major rewards, climbing in the double and triple digits. Investors were also optimistic about the lower interest rate environment, as this backdrop makes it easier for companies to borrow and for consumers to spend. Continue reading