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Russia’s ruble recovers, oil will stay volatile and Warren Buffett bought a tech company stake. Ruble recoversRussia’s ruble recovers to pre [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Russia’s ruble recovers, oil will stay volatile and Warren Buffett bought a tech company stake. Ruble recovers Russia’s [ruble recovers]( to pre-war levels even as sanctions pile up. Ukraine’s foreign minister pleaded for[more weapons]( at a NATO meeting in Brussels, and called out Germany for being too slow to help.  The German economy minister said he’s open to a [Russian coal ban.]( The United Nations General Assembly is set to vote Thursday on whether to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council. Russian unemployment could double to the highest in a decade this year. Oil warning Oil continues to be roiled by intense volatility after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sparking grim warnings about its impact on global economies. The latest came from Jeremy Grantham of Boston asset manager GMO, who [said]( oil spikes of this magnitude have always triggered recessions in the past. Meanwhile, legislators [asked]( Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to create an escrow account for proceeds from Russian oil and gas sales amid efforts to tighten sanctions. Russia [continues]( to find buyers for its crude, with traders saying May cargoes of a key oil grade are heading to China, India, Japan and Korea. Buffett stake HP shares gained in premarket trading after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought [a stake]( in the laptop maker valued at more than $4.2 billion. Berkshire has now become the company's largest shareholder, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, with a 12% stake. The investment giant has been taking advantage of stock market volatility this year to put money to work. Buffett’s company also bought shares in Occidental Petroleum last month, building a stake that now ranks among Berkshire’s top 10 common-stock bets. Stocks recover [Markets are showing signs of recovery](after a selloff brought on by hawkish Fed minutes. Europe’s Stoxx 600 gained 0.7% as of 5:35 a.m. New York time, with health care and chemical makers outperforming. Regionally, the FTSE 100 lagged peers. In U.S. stocks futures, contracts on the S&P 500 edged higher, with those on the Dow Jones little changed and on the Nasdaq 100 rising 0.4%. The Bloomberg dollar spot index ticked higher and the euro declined against the greenback. Bond markets were steady. In commodities, spot gold drifted, while oil edged higher, with WTI up 0.8%. Coming up... It’s a fairly quiet day on the data and central bank front, but the minutes of the ECB’s March meeting follow on the heels of similar notes from the Fed yesterday, where balance-sheet reduction was discussed. Weekly jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. New York provide a point of focus, and the Bank of England’s Huw Pill will deliver a speech. Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses the Greek parliament, and Bloomberg hosts a wealth summit. Earnings include Constellation Brands, Conagra. What we've been reading Here's what caught our eye over the past 24 hours. - The [Bridgewater CEO]( who went full MAGA. - Sanctions hobble the airline built by [`Russia’s Elon Musk’](. - Wealthy [U.S. suburbs]( don’t see big housing boom. - [C]([rypto bailouts]( risk becoming cost of business for VCs. - [Insomnia]( could increase Type 2 diabetes risk. - [Musk embraces]( blunt-smoking meme. - A jolly [crypto greeting]( goes viral. And finally, here’s what Joe’s interested in this morning Last month, New York Magazine [ran a cover story on Columbia professor Adam Tooze](, and the huge array of fans he's amassed, particularly among a certain type of literary leftists who live in Brooklyn. In 2018, Tooze released his magisterial work [Crashed](, a book about the Great Financial Crisis, which went into deep detail on both the politics and economics of the swap lines set up by the Federal Reserve in order to improve dollar liquidity around the world. These days, in addition to writing books and articles and being a professor, [he has a popular newsletter called Chartbook](, which covers an astonishingly wide degree of topics. In fact, the same day that the NY Mag story came out, [Chartbook covered Germany's energy predicament]( and the potential use of heat pumps as a way to reduce the country's use of Russian gas. Tooze, of course, covers a lot of financial topics, but it's interesting that several years ago he was discussing the ultimate monetary topic (central bank swap lines) and these days he's talking about the strategic significance of [devices]( that allow you to control the climate in your home without the use of fossil fuels. The trajectory is part of a huge shift that's occurring right now, and it's one that we discuss with Zoltan Pozsar of Credit Suisse in the [latest episode of Odd Lots out today](. For years before and after the Great Financial Crisis, we've been living in a world in which most problems are solvable by money, particularly money from the world's richest countries and their central banks. QE, swap lines, bank bailouts, national bailouts: it's been an era for demonstrating the power of the printing press. Starting in 2020, with Covid, and accelerating in 2022 with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we're now in an era of problems that can't be solved by money — or at least not money alone. Whatever direction Germany goes with its energy, the problem isn't money, it's engineering, physics, and maybe geopolitics. Same with U.S. housing. Same with gasoline. Same with battery technology. Same with the global wheat market. This is where all the action is. And so after a decade of everyone wanting to learn about how finance worked, the new thing is everyone wanting to learn about liquefying natural gas, how heat pumps work, the degree to which nuclear power will be a future part of the grid, and whether the U.S. has big enough dredge equipment to expand capacity at the ports. Anyway, the whole episode with Pozsar is worth listening to, because the vibe shift from the financial to the real has all kinds of significant implications. Follow Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal on Twitter [@TheStalwart]( Special Daily Brief: Russia's Invasion of Ukraine [Keep up with the latest news]( on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of the worst security crises in Europe since World War II. Like Bloomberg's Five Things? [Subscribe for unlimited access]( to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. 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