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.
U.S. companies are projected to buyback more than $1.1 trillion worth of stock in 2025, which would mark an all-time high. Buybacks have been particularly concentrated at the top, with the 20 largest companies accounting for almost half of repurchases.
Trend-following hedge funds lost 9.6% in the first half of this year, on track for their worst annual performance since at least 1998. Meanwhile, hedge funds more broadly returned 4%, net of fees, while the S&P 500 delivered 6.2% to investors, including dividends.
