The U.S. is planning to hand out $10 billion to help upstart companies gain access to capital in a bid to rev up business in disadvantaged communities and spur a broader economic recovery from the pandemic. The State Small Business Credit Initiative will direct money to states, territories and tribal governments for programs that provide venture capital or encourage private lenders to issue loans to small firms. The program revives a policy put into place following the 2007-2009 recession, when banks cut back on lending to small firms and is more than six times as large the cost of the earlier program.

U.S. pension funds’ private-equity investments swelled to an average 8.9% of holdings in 2021 after three years of straight growth. That amounts to roughly $480 billion of state and local pension fund assets tracked by the Federal Reserve, up from about $300 billion in 2018.

Federal Reserve officials discussed a faster timetable for raising interest rates, December meeting minutes show, signaling greater discomfort with inflation.

While some investors expect that inflation, which reached a 39-year high in November, has peaked, others are worried that Omicron could prolong supply-chain disruptions, adding further pressure to prices.

The S&P 500 is headed toward a 28% advance for 2021 and has hit 70 highs. It is the third straight year of double-digit gains for the broad index, and the second in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite have gained 19% and 22%, respectively, this year, helping send the major indexes to their best three-year performance since 1999.

In the first eight months of the year, IPO shares rose. In November, 2021’s class of IPOs were trading up 12% on average. By late December, they traded 9% below their IPO prices.

The cash committed to venture-capital firms and private-equity firms, so-called dry powder hit about $440 billion for venture capitalists and roughly $310 billion for growth-focused PE firms earlier this month.

Since Feb 21., 2020, just before the pandemic tanked markets, self-storage shares in the FTSE Nareit All Equity REITs Index have returned about 84% between price gains and dividend payments.

There are 15.3 million 529 plan accounts with total assets of $464.3 billion, an average account value of $30,287.

Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, inched up by 18,000 to 206,000 for the week ended Dec. 11 from a revised 188,000—the lowest level in 52 years. New jobless claims have been steadily declining throughout the year.