Jobless claims fell below 500,000 last week for the first time during the pandemic as layoffs decline and hiring accelerates.

The exchange operator CME Group Inc. said it would permanently close most of its open-outcry trading pits in Chicago, ending one of the world’s last vestiges of old-fashioned floor trading. Floor trading for agricultural commodities has existed in Chicago since the mid-19th century.

Stockholdings among U.S. households increased to 41% of their total financial assets in April, the highest level on record dating back to 1952.

After 2020 saw US-domiciled ETFs gain $476 billion in net flows (inflows less outflows)—which broke the annual record of $470 billion set in 2017—they accumulated nearly $248 billion in Q1 this year.

The consumer confidence index increased to 121.7 in April from a revised 109.0 in March. Recent improvements led the index to a more than one-year high, with the indicator approaching the pre-pandemic level of 132.6 in February 2020.

In the first quarter this year, U.S. startups raised $69 billion from investors—41% more than the previous record, set in the fourth quarter of 2018.

The consumer-price index jumped 2.6% in the year ended March. The Fed expects inflation to rise temporarily this year because of growing demand fueled by increased vaccination rates, falling restrictions on businesses and trillions of dollars in federal pandemic relief programs.

Investors have borrowed a record $814 billion against their portfolios, up 49% from one year earlier. This marks the fastest annual increase since 2007, during the frothy period before the 2008 financial crisis. Before that, the last time investor borrowings had grown so rapidly was during the dot-com bubble in 1999.

BlackRock Inc. has raised $3 billion to invest in the private-equity secondary market. BlackRock Secondaries & Liquidity Solutions LP is among the largest debut funds ever raised to buy secondhand private equity stakes.

Women’s participation in the labor force slipped to 57%, the lowest it has been since 1988. More than 2.3 million women have dropped out of the labor force during the pandemic, compared with 1.8 million men.