In the Fortune 500, 82% of employers offer at least some remote-work opportunities and Americans spent about 30% of their paid days working from home in January 2024, largely the same from a year earlier.
The U.S. economy grew 3.1% over the last year, defying projections of a recession as a resilient labor market supported strong consumer spending. The 2023 figure stands in contrast to what economists expected a year ago, when they saw a recession as very likely and expected anemic 0.2% growth for the year. Last year’s gain was a sharp pickup from a comparable 0.7% advance in 2022.
Rising interest rates drew trillions of dollars into money-market funds and other cash-like investments in the past two years, with more than $8.8 trillion parked in money funds and CDs as of the third quarter of 2023.
In 2023, ETFs gathered nearly $600 billion in net flows. While that’s less than some previous years, including 2021’s nearly $1 trillion record haul, it still shows the massive, sustained momentum behind ETFs.
BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, announced it is buying Global Infrastructure Partners for about $12 billion in cash and stock. The acquisition is part of the firm’s increased focus on infrastructure.
Private-equity investment has dramatically changed the life insurance and annuity business over the past decade. By 2022, buyout firms owned 137 U.S. insurance companies with $534 billion in assets, about 6.5% of the entire U.S. market, up from 90 insurers and $314 billion in 2018, around 4.8% of the market.
U.S. retail sales rose 3.1% from Nov. 1 through Dec. 24, reflecting a year marked by rising prices. After a busy Thanksgiving and Black Friday weekend, many consumers waited for the last minute to shop, with Saturday, Dec. 23, the biggest sales day of the year—topping Black Friday.
The 30-year mortgage rate has fallen by more than a percentage point recently to 6.62%. The shrinking spread between that and the 10-year Treasury yield amounts to roughly one-sixth of the decline.
