The Trump administration is awarding $2 billion in grants to nine quantum-computing companies, including U.S. government equity stakes. IBM will receive $1 billion of the package. The funding comes from the 2022 Chips and Science Act, with the government taking minority equity stakes in each company.
The number of jobs held by women has increased by 421,000 since the end of 2024. The number of jobs held by men has slipped by 1,000. It is a figure that comes with caveats: More women hold multiple jobs, for example, while more men are self-employed—meaning they have work but they aren’t included in the payrolls jobs count.
Blackstone and Apollo continued to attract investor money, reporting 18% and 30% year-over-year increases, respectively, in the first quarter for their credit divisions’ assets under management. Blue Owl also reported higher overall assets under management from a year ago.
Total trading volume on Polymarket and Kalshihas rocketed to $24.2 billion in April, up from $1.8 billion a year earlier.
Some 55% of borrowers who received mortgage relief in 2024 fell behind again on payments within one year and the FHA is currently approaching a 60 percent redefault rate. Some 46% of borrowers in default as of last September had previously defaulted at least three times.
Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite finished April with their largest monthly gains since 2020, as investors looked past the war in Iran and focused instead on strong earnings and a revived tech trade.
Only 30% of the federal government’s $1.7 trillion student-loan portfolio is currently being repaid. Among the delinquent student borrowers, 38 percent now have an auto loan, up from 30 percent before the pandemic and the share with a mortgage has nearly doubled, rising from 8 percent in 2019 to 15 percent in 2025.
Year-over-year growth in earnings per share is expected to exceed 13% for the sixth quarter running. Sales are expected to rise more than in any quarter since the fall of 2022.
As sentiment toward private credit began to shift last year, shares of many publicly traded BDCs sold off, trading below their stated net asset value. But the price at which investors can enter or exit nontraded funds has changed very little, thanks to a difference in structure. Some investors are pulling their money from the nontraded BDCs after seeing that comparable public funds are trading at a steep discount.
