Market News

One hundred twenty-five years ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average made its debut. The index of 12 smokestack companies closed that first trading day, May 26, 1896, at 40.94.

The Federal Reserve’s collection of bonds, cash and other holdings could reach $9 trillion by 2023, as compared to the currently level of $7.9 trillion and just over $4 trillion at the end of February last year before the coronavirus pandemic.

Visits to airports, hotels and theaters in less vaccinated states had recovered in April to 71.2% of pre-pandemic levels versus 52.7% in more vaccinated states.

At Airbnb, the length of stay is increasing. In 2019 at this period of time, 14% of bookings were longer than 28 days. Now, 24% of Airbnb nights are longer than 28 days.

Year-to-date, $312 billion of registered equity offerings through IPOs, SPACs and follow-on deals came to market in the U.S. That figure exceeds the total annual average of $290 billion that came to market in the U.S. over the last decade.

Between March and May last year, commercial real-estate prices fell 11%. Prices since July have increased 7%, erasing more than half their pandemic declines. That turnaround stands in sharp contrast to the 2008 financial crisis, when commercial real-estate prices in the U.S. fell 37%.

The leisure and hospitality sector, including restaurants, added 331,000 jobs in April, accounting for much of the country’s job creation last month. Commerce’s Friday report showed sales at restaurants and bars in April were just 2% lower than their levels in February 2020, just before the pandemic took hold in the U.S.

The recovery of hotel demand is exacerbating the industry's ongoing labor shortage, leading companies to explore new ways of recruiting employees to their hotels, including the possibility of paying them at the end of their shifts.

Special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) shattered records in 2020, with 250 companies collectively raising $75.1 billion, compared with 2019, when 53 SPACs raised $11.1 billion.

Credit-card spending in the U.S. totaled nearly $3.9 trillion on general-purpose and store cards last year, down 9% from 2019.