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.

Oak Hill has agreed to buy 110 North Wacker Drive from Howard Hughes Corp. in a deal that values the 1.5-million-square-foot skyscraper at more than $1 billion. That would be the highest price paid for a Chicago property building since the beginning of the pandemic.

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.

Blackstone Inc. has agreed to buy Bluerock Residential Growth REIT Inc. in a deal valued at $3.6 billion, extending its push into U.S. rental housing.

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

Blackstone Inc. is in advanced talks to acquire a 49% stake in One Manhattan West that values the skyscraper at $2.85 billion from a venture led by Brookfield Asset Management.

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.

Landlords filled up 17 million square feet of additional real-estate space in open-air shopping centers last quarter, up 49% from 2019. The surge is propelled by increased foot traffic to grocery stores, curbside pickup and population shifts that favor suburban shopping.

Hard Rock International has agreed to buy the operations of the Mirage casino on the Las Vegas Strip from MGM Resorts International for nearly $1.1 billion with plans to build a giant guitar-shaped hotel on the glitzy boulevard.

An index of lithium prices doubled between May and November and is up some 240% for the year. The index is at its highest level in data going back five years.