The VIX hasn’t closed above 30, a key level that signifies increased fear, since June and settled Tuesday just below 24. The VVIX, an index measuring the volatility of the VIX itself, has fallen relatively steadily since January and recently hit a three-year low of 80.

Total general-purpose and store credit-card debt fell to $748 billion in April 2021 from $913 billion in January 2020. It remains among the few mainstream forms of consumer debt where the aggregate balances, now at $855 billion in May, haven’t yet returned to prepandemic norms.

The world’s pool of negative-yielding debt has shrunk to a roughly seven-year low, as an era of exceptionally loose monetary policy draws to a close in most major economies. The total stock of negative-yielding debt last week stood at $2.4 trillion, an 87% plunge from the $18.4 trillion peak reached in December 2020.

The valuation of the U.S. stock market has fallen faster than in the aftermath of the dot-com crash, recording the biggest six, 12 and 18-month drops since data on price-to-forward-earnings ratios began in 1985.

There are 2,845 private equity funds currently in the market, collectively aiming to raise over $1 trillion in capital. Both figures represent increases of more than 60% over the beginning of 2021.

The probability of a one-point increase rose to around 79% on Wednesday, up from around 12%.

U.S. inflation reached 9.1% in June, its highest rate in nearly 41 years.

The companies in the S&P 500 paid out a record $140.6 billion in dividends in the most recent quarter. That’s up from $137.6 billion in the first three months of the year and $123.4 billion in the same quarter last year.

Fed fund futures show that traders assign a roughly 96% probability that the Federal Reserve will deliver a 0.75-percentage-point rate hike at its meeting later this month, according to CME Group. That is up from 84% a day ago, after minutes from the central bank’s recent meeting showed that taming inflation was the main goal.

The U.S. has recorded more than 11 million unfilled job openings in six of the past seven months, four million more monthly openings than was typical before Covid-19 hit the economy in early 2020.