Investors put $33 billion toward U.S.-based venture capital funds in the first half of 2023, less than half the $74 billion in the same period in 2021. Global fundraising for all private funds fell 10% last year to $1.5 trillion.
The 60-day-plus delinquency rate for subprime auto loans rose to 5.37% in June. That is well above the 0.49% June rate for prime loans in the tracker, and the highest June level ever for subprime.
Activist hedge funds have seen their investments climb about 14% through July. That trails the S&P 500’s gains of about 20% through the same time period. But it’s better than 2022, when activists as a unit were down more than 16% for the full year.
Hedge-fund firms that have more than $5 billion in assets had net inflows of $14 billion in the first half of this year. Those with between $1 billion and $5 billion had inflows of about $1 billion. Firms managing less than $1 billion, by contrast, had net outflows of some $2 billion.
Private funds’ gross assets recently surpassed those of the commercial banking sector at more than $25 trillion. That is up from $9 trillion in 2012.
The Federal Reserve resumed lifting interest rates with a quarter-percentage-point increase that will bring them to a 22-year high.
The Conference Board said last week that its leading economic index fell for a 15th consecutive month, signaling slowing economic activity ahead. That is the index’s longest streak of declines since a span from the spring of 2007 through early 2009. The U.S. economy fell into a recession in December 2007 and didn’t exit until June 2009.
