The equity risk premium, defined as the gap between the S&P 500’s earnings yield and that of 10-year Treasurys, turned negative in late December for the first time since 2002 and sat last week at negative 0.15 percentage point.

In recent months, wealthy political appointees, new members of Congress and business leaders have flooded the luxury real-estate market in Washington, D.C., scooping up multimillion-dollar properties in the nation’s capital and in nearby McLean, Va.

The federal government currently leases 149.39 million square feet of office space across the nation, with rent payments totaling $5.23 billion annually. In total, the GSA owns and leases more than 363 million square feet of space in 8,397 buildings nationally. A filing of its real estate inventory found 1,715 of the GSA’s listed leases nationally are set to expire in 2025 and 2026, totaling at least 47 million square feet.

Public pension plans, university endowments and charitable foundations have about doubled their investments in private-equity funds since 2018. North American private-equity funds now manage some $4 trillion in assets.

The Trump administration is considering selling two-thirds of the federal government’s office stock to the private sector, and approximately three-quarters of the 70 million square feet of office space the GSA leases from private landlords in D.C. is also likely to be canceled.

The top 20 hedge-fund managers oversee about 20% of industry assets but are responsible for an estimated 32% of industrywide net gains.

Meeting minutes from the Fed’s December policy meeting showed officials bracing for the possibility that the coming administration could usher in another spell of higher-than-expected inflation.

The stock market is pricing portfolios of American homes at a hefty discount to what houses are changing hands for in the open market. Shares of publicly traded single-family landlords are trading at 35% and 20% discounts to their net asset values.

Job gains averaged 186,000 a month in 2024. But 76% of the job growth in the past year has been in healthcare and education, leisure and hospitality, and government. In fields such as finance, information, and professional and business services, job growth has been far weaker.

Retail availability has fallen to record-low levels since the pandemic, thanks in part to a dearth in new store construction. Rent prices are climbing in many places.