In the first quarter of 2025, businesses leased about 115 million square feet of office space, a 13% increase from the fourth quarter of 2024 and the most since the middle of 2019.

The Barclays high-yield bond capitulation signal jumped 34 percentage points since the end of March to 91%, its highest level since October 2023, when Treasury yields surged on inflation fears. When the gauge hits 100%, the market is in full capitulation. That has happened five times this century: during the 2008-09 financial crisis; the 2011 European debt crisis; when oil prices plummeted in 2016; the start of the pandemic in 2020; and when interest rates surged in 2022.

Inflation cooled last month, with a year-over-year measure of underlying prices falling to its lowest level in four years.

The Magnificent Seven tech stocks—Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Nvidia and Tesla—have shed $2.1 trillion in market value since Trump’s tariff announcement last week.

Americans have amassed $35 trillion of wealth in their homes. Home equity has climbed nearly 80% since early 2020—up from $19.5 trillion—thanks to a turbocharged rise in house prices. That was about twice the rise in financial wealth including stocks and bonds as of the end of 2024.

First-time buyers hit a record low share of the homebuying market last year, with only 24% of homebuyers saying they were purchasing a home for the first time — a substantial drop from the 32% who said the same the year prior. Meanwhile, baby boomers were the largest cohort of homebuyers last year, making up 42% of all homebuyers.

Morgan Properties, the country’s largest privately held apartment landlord, has agreed to pay $501 million for 11 multifamily properties across the Midwest, the latest wager that the region’s lack of supply provides fertile ground for rent hikes.

Furloughs in the federal government totaled 216,215 for the month, part of a total 275,240 reductions overall in the labor force. The monthly total was surpassed only by April and May of 2020 in the early days of the pandemic when employers announced combined reductions of more than 1 million.

The 10 biggest U.S. consulting firms to the federal government have offered to cut billions of dollars from their contracts with agencies but face pushback from the Trump administration to deliver even deeper savings. Companies including Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte, IBM and others met the General Services Administration deadline to justify their contracts and identify potential cost cuts to existing projects.

A near-record-low 30 million square feet of net-new retail was built nationwide last year, compared with 221 million square feet in 2006.