Apollo Global Management Inc. agreed to acquire Athene Holding Ltd. in an all-stock deal that values the annuity business at about $11 billion. The deal is expected to close in January 2022.
It is estmated that 17% of renters are now behind on their payments—three times the typical rate. Unpaid rent exceeds $52 billion with the average delinquent household owing $5,586.
The Fed will continue to support the economy with near-zero interest rates and large-scale asset purchases until “substantial further progress has been made,” a standard that Mr. Powell said “is likely to take some time” to achieve.
Since February 2020, the leisure-and-hospitality sector has shed nearly four million jobs, roughly a quarter of its workforce. As of January 2021, 15.9% of the industry’s workers remained unemployed; more than any other industry.
Shoppers boosted spending by 5.3% in January, the first increase in four months, buoyed by recent virus-related stimulus payments. The rise followed three consecutive months of declining sales during the 2020 holiday shopping season.
Lumber futures have climbed 47% over the past three weeks, to within a few dollars of records set in September. Lumber for March delivery ended trading Friday at $982.10 per thousand board feet, more than twice the price a year earlier.
The U.S. budget gap totaled a record $736 billion during the first four months of fiscal 2021, an 89% increase from a year earlier.
Households’ expected level of spending a year from now surged to 4.2%, the best reading since June 2015 and predict their future incomes would rise by 2.4%, a 0.2 percentage point increase from the prior month and the highest reading since February 2020.
Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 could lift 900,000 Americans above the poverty threshold—but the policy would cost 1.4 million Americans their jobs over the next four years, according to a study released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget.
