PNC Financial Services Group will buy FirstBank Holding Co for $4.1 billion to expand its presence in the West.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell had previously signaled the central bank was on track to cut rates if data suggested that the labor market was slowing. Friday’s report provided a clear sign that payroll growth had downshifted meaningfully since the beginning of the year.

The spate of corporate breakups has spurred a comeback in deal activity. Deal volumes are up 23% in the U.S. year over year. But not all companies are shying away from megamergers: The year’s biggest deal so far was Union Pacific’s $71.5 billion acquisition of fellow railroad Norfolk Southern.

Blackstone closed on $5.5 billion for its latest infrastructure secondaries fund, Strategic Partners Infrastructure IV L.P., and its related committed program vehicles. SP Infrastructure IV is the world’s largest dedicated infrastructure secondaries fund raised to-date.

Margin borrowing is at an all-time high as of July, and topped $1 trillion for the first time ever as of June.

The Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans paid 23.8% of their economic income in taxes from 2018 to 2020. Of those taxes, 37% come through corporate taxes, with the bulk of the rest from individual income and payroll taxes.

Activity on Ethereum amounted to more than $1.2 trillion this year, compared with $960 billion during the same time frame last year. Most of the transactions involve tether and USD Coin, the two largest dollar-pegged stablecoins, as well as deposits and withdrawals to major exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase.

Personal-loan originations jumped 18% in the first quarter from a year earlier, bringing total balances to a record $257 billion, but relief can be temporary. A separate study found that while borrowers who consolidate card debt into personal loans initially reduce their card balances by an average of 57%, many refill those cards within 18 months.

Workers in their late 30s had 88% of their 401(k)s in stocks last year, versus 82% a decade earlier. Investors in their early 60s had 401(k) allocations to stocks of 60%, up from 57% a decade ago.

The small business optimism index, a gauge of sentiment among small firms, improved to 100.3 in July from 98.6 in June, taking it further above the 98 point that marks the index’s long-term average.