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.
2021 IPOs
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.
110 North Wacker
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.
Dry Powder
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.
Self Storage
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.
BX BRG
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.
529 Plan Assets
There are 15.3 million 529 plan accounts with total assets of $464.3 billion, an average account value of $30,287.
One Manhattan West
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
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.
Open-Air Retail
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.