Putin says he won't allow Russia to fall into recession amid gloomy economy

ST. PETERSBURG — Speaking Friday at an economic forum once set up to court Western companies and showcase Russia as a lucrative investment destination, President Vladimir Putin declared that stagnation and recession in the economy would not be allowed after experts and high-ranking officials warned of a slowdown.
The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which just over a decade ago hosted energy giants such as BP and Total and announced billion-dollar deals like the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, has had a sparse attendance from Western investors this year. It is an indication of the drastic transformation the Russian has undergone since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as it has shifted to war-footing and Western companies have left in droves.

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TechCrunch

39 minutes ago

• TechCrunch

The new math: why seed investors are selling their winners earlier

Charles Hudson had just closed his fifth fund several months ago – $66 million for Precursor Ventures – when one of his limited partners asked him to run an exercise. What would have happened, the LP wondered, if Hudson had sold all his portfolio companies at Series A? What about Series B? Or Series C? The question wasn't academic. After two decades in venture capital, Hudson has been watching the math of seed investing change, maybe permanently. LPs who've previously been patient with seven-to-eight-year hold periods are suddenly asking questions about interim liquidity. 'Seven or eight years feels like a really long time' to LPs right now, says Hudson, even though 'it's always been seven or eight years.' The reason: a steady stream of venture returns in recent years — returns that made long hold periods acceptable — has largely dried up. Coupled with the availability of other, more liquid investment options, many backers of very early-stage VC are demanding a new approach. The analysis his LP requested revealed an uncomfortable truth, says Hudson. Selling everything at the Series A stage didn't work; the compounding effect of staying in the best companies outweighed any benefits from cutting losses early. But Series B was different. 'You could have a north of 3x fund if you sold everything at the B,' Hudson discovered. 'And I'm like, 'Well, that's pretty good.'' Beyond pretty good, that realization is reshaping how Hudson thinks about portfolio management in 2025. Though now a veteran investor – Hudson has spent 22 years in VC between Precursor, an eight-year run at Uncork Capital and another four years at In-Q-Tel earlier in his career – he says investors in very young companies are being forced to think like private equity managers, optimizing for cash returns alongside the home runs that, if they're lucky, define their careers. It's not an easy mental change to make. 'The companies where there's the most secondary interest are also the set of companies where I have the greatest expectations for the future,' says Hudson. It's not just Hudson; his thinking about secondary sales reflects broader pressures reshaping the venture ecosystem. Hans Swildens is the founder of Industry Ventures, a San Francisco-based fund of funds and direct investment firm with stakes in 700 venture firms, told Techrunch in April that venture funds are 'starting to get savvier about what they need to do to generate liquidity.' He's seeing venture funds hire full-time staff members specifically to pursue alternative liquidity options, with some seed managers dedicating months to 'manufacturing liquidity from their funds.' Though this reshuffling of priorities extends far beyond any single fund, the pressure is particularly acute for smaller funds like Precursor, a traditional seed-stage fund that prides itself on backing unconventional founders like Laura Modi of ByHeart baby formula (a solo founder in a regulated industry with no prior experience) and Doktor Gerson of Rad AI (whose previous startup had failed). While firms with mega-funds like Sequoia and General Catalyst can afford to wait for $25 billion outcomes, smaller funds need to be more tactical about when and how they harvest returns. Perhaps nowhere is the shift more visible than in Hudson's relationships with limited partners. University endowments, once the most coveted LPs in venture, are now grappling with unforeseen challenges from the Trump administration. Harvard, of course, is the poster child here, with federal investigations into its admissions practices, threats to research funding tied to compliance issues, and ongoing scrutiny of its substantial endowment amid calls for universities to increase their annual spending requirements or face taxation. Hudson says that based on his conversations with LPs inside these organizations, they've never believed more in the power of venture, yet they've also never felt more hesitant about making 10- to 15-year illiquid commitments. The result is a more complex LP base with competing needs. Some want 'as much money back as soon as possible, even if that's a suboptimal outcome in the long term,' says Hudson. Others prefer that Hudson 'hold everything to maturity, because that's what's going to maximize my returns.' Navigating these demands requires the kind of portfolio management sophistication that seed investors haven't traditionally needed, which Hudson views with some ambivalence. Venture, he says, is starting to feel a lot less like an art and something that 'feels a lot more like some of these other sub-asset classes in finance.' Hudson isn't without hope, he adds, but he is clear-eyed about what's changing on the ground, as well as the opportunities those changes create. As funds grow larger and deploy more capital, they're becoming necessarily more algorithmic, looking for 'companies in these categories, with founders from these schools with these academic backgrounds who worked at these companies,' he says. The approach works for deploying large amounts of capital efficiently, but it misses the 'weird and wonderful' companies that have defined Hudson's best returns and kept Precursor in the game. 'If you're going to hire people just off a resume screener tool,' he says, 'you're going to miss people who maybe have really relevant experiences that the algorithm doesn't catch.' You can hear our full interview with Hudson via TechCrunch's StrictlyVC Download podcast. New episodes come out every Tuesday.

Yahoo

an hour ago

• Yahoo

Palantir Holds Anti-Fragile Edge Amid a Geopolitical Firestorm

As 2025 emerges as a year marked by heightened global conflict and uncertainty, Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR is demonstrating how its platforms are increasingly relevant in volatile environments. From the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Iran escalation to rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait, governments are rapidly investing in technologies that support secure, real-time decision-making under pressure. Palantir holds an antifragile edge because rising geopolitical instability amplifies demand for its AI-driven defense platforms, thus deepening integration and long-term relevance. As global conflicts intensify, its systems become more critical, reinforcing the company's strategic value and making it stronger in the face of adversity. Palantir's strength lies in its ability to offer mission-critical infrastructure and not just tools. Its Maven Smart Systems (MSS) platform, integrating AI with real-time intelligence, has seen a rapid increase in adoption, including NATO's recent selection of MSS as its Command and Control (C2) platform for all 32 member states. This underscores a broader institutional shift toward advanced, data-driven defense capabilities. In times of crisis, decision-makers are often inundated with fragmented data and evolving threats. Palantir's platforms, Gotham, Foundry and MetaConstellation, help unify and analyze this data securely, enabling informed and timely responses. Importantly, Palantir delivers sovereign and deployable AI systems, reinforcing the autonomy and operational integrity of its users. While no one welcomes conflict, the unfortunate reality of today's geopolitical landscape has led to renewed focus on resilient digital infrastructure. Palantir's deeply integrated solutions, particularly its Ontology framework, position it as a critical enabler of secure coordination and defense modernization. PLTR has surged a whopping 85% in 2025, with its stock reaching an all-time high near $145. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research With the stock trading above 200x forward P/E and 74x forward P/S ratio, far above industry averages, even optimistic analysts will acknowledge that such multiples are difficult to justify without efficient execution. As ceasefire negotiations and diplomatic resolutions begin, the 'war premium' currently embedded in PLTR's share price could dissipate as swiftly as it had emerged. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research PLTR stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its second-quarter 2025 earnings has been on the rise over the past 60 days. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. As PLTR moves higher, Lockheed Martin LMT and RTX Corporation RTX offer more grounded defense exposure. Lockheed Martin, with its massive defense contracts, provides steady cash flow and less volatility than PLTR. LMT continues to benefit from global rearmament while trading at modest earnings multiples. Similarly, RTX shines through missile systems. RTX's defense backlog, like LMT's, underscores its stability. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) : Free Stock Analysis Report RTX Corporation (RTX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

The Hill

an hour ago

• The Hill

How the AP decided to refer to the conflict between Israel and Iran as a war

The Associated Press is calling the current conflict between Israel and Iran a war, given the scope, intensity and duration of military activities on both sides. Other news organizations also have decided to refer to the conflict as a war, while some are still sticking with words such as 'conflict' or 'fighting.' When a conflict in the world spills into military action, it's important to use the correct terms to describe it. Sometimes a one-sided attack occurs without further action, or a conflict bubbles up and then ends quickly Using 'war' widely to describe these kinds of situations can diminish the word's importance. Then, when actual war breaks out, people might not understand its significance. The Merriam-Webster definition of war is quite broad: 'A state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations,' or 'a state of hostility, conflict, or antagonism.' The fight between Israel and Iran meets those criteria, though neither has officially declared war. Since Israel launched an air campaign targeting Iran's military and nuclear program, there has been a significant escalation in the conflict. Iran has launched hundreds of missiles and drones into Israel. Israel has assassinated high-level Iranian officials; targeted the country's infrastructure; called for hundreds of thousands of residents to evacuate Iran's capital, Tehran; and said it will continue its offensive. The AP provided guidance on the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas war in the days and weeks after fighting began. In both cases, editors considered the number of casualties, the intensity of fighting, the involvement of each party, and what each country was calling the conflict. In both cases, the AP started using the word 'war' to describe the conflicts. AP capitalizes the word 'war' only as part of a formal name, which as of now does not exist. Decisions on how AP uses the term 'war' happen in real time. AP's news leaders and standards editors will continue to monitor developments to see whether changes are necessary. At this point, the level of fighting constitutes the countries being at war, no matter what happens next. If fighting were to end soon, AP would continue saying the countries had been at war. News leaders would consider whether the level of fighting at that time amounted to being at war. If other countries intervene in the war, AP would describe the intervention as military action in support of Israel or military support of Iran. AP would also consider whether the action constitutes those countries also being at war.