Several NATO diplomats said member states are preparing a new €70 billion military support package for Ukraine, expected to be unveiled at the NATO summit in July. Proposed by Germany, the plan would establish a new mechanism to boost transparency of member contributions and rebalance burden-sharing. A Kiel Institute report said European countries’ monthly military aid averaged €2.0 bln in Jan–Apr this year, below €2.4 bln per month in the same period of 2025, and that the US provided no militar

Optimism in South Korean equities is cooling, prompting institutional investors to trim positions and buy protection. Hedge fund Golden Horse has cut risk exposure and increased derivatives hedges; Prudential reduced stakes in storage-chip and wafer-foundry names and shifted toward downstream AI supply‑chain exposure. Options flow shows investors buying puts on the iShares MSCI Korea ETF; the ETF fell 14% in US trading last Friday. Golden Horse managing partner Yi Ling Ong said, “In recent weeks we’ve modestly trimmed overall positions and layered on derivatives hedges,” and added that several large IPOs this month, including SpaceX, are expected to prompt institutions to raise cash, so “holding some cash is prudent.”

Fed Governor Michael Barr criticized recent rollbacks easing limits on bank lending, saying proposals have substantially weakened bank oversight and that vulnerabilities from looser rules may not be visible now but could accumulate over several years and cause serious economic damage. He said Trump-era officials loosened capital requirements, narrowed the regulatory perimeter and facilitated competition between traditional banks and private-credit firms. Barr warned that weaker capital, liquidity and supervisory standards would raise the risk of bank stress; while banks need room to support economic innovation, history shows profit-driven innovation without adequate safeguards can create excessive risk that, if realized, threatens firms, households and the broader economy.