At least 4.4m workers claimed unemployment benefits for the first time in the week ending April 18.

Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims

Initial claims were 4,427,000 for the week ending 4/18 (-810,000).

Insured unemployment was 15,976,000 for the week ending 4/11 (+4,064,000).https://t.co/ys7Eg5LKAW

— US Labor Department (@USDOL) April 23, 2020

The numbers of ...

A large majority of people surveyed say they are concerned that restrictions on social distancing will be lifted too soon. Even before cities and states issued stay at home orders, people were avoiding restaurants and other crowded places, according to Matthew Iglesias of Vox. There's no reason to think that "reopening" the economy is ...

In the wake of the financial crisis, Congress passed regulations limiting the types of investments that banks could make into private equity and venture capital funds. As cash strapped investors pull back on commitments to venture funds given the precipitous drop of public market stocks, loosening restrictions on the how banks invest cash could be ...

Wouldn't it be amazing if the United States did this?

Britain’s finance minister Rishi Sunak said Thursday all self-employed citizens will receive a taxable grant of 80% of their average monthly profits as part of the government’s coronavirus response plan.

From Reuters:

“The government will pay self-employed people who have been adversely affected by the coronavirus ...

The stock markets are having a very rough month, but interest in stock trading apps is skyrocketing, according to data from industry trackers and companies themselves. Across the board from speculative stock trading apps from startups like Robinhood to savings-focused investment applications like Acorns and established companies like Etrade, would-be investors are turning to trading ...

Today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average experienced its largest gain in a single day since 1933.

From the Wall Street Journal:

U.S. stocks rallied sharply Tuesday, with the Dow surging to its biggest one-day gain in more than 85 years on signs that lawmakers and the Trump administration were nearing a deal on a giant stimulus ...

It's already been reported that Trump is getting antsy about all the social-distancing quarantines intended to flatten the curve of coronavirus deaths, and that he's eager to return things to business-as-normal. Who cares about a million deaths as long as the economy is moving, amirite?

I'm sure his decision has nothing to do with the ...

The New York Stock Exchange will close its trading floor on Monday, March 23 and fully move to electronic trading, the exchange’s operator Intercontinental Exchange announced today. The actual physical locations that will close are the NYSE equities trading floor in New York, the NYSE American Options trading floor in New York and the NYSE ...

Five years ago, it was hard to come by any numbers for annual VC investment in Africa. These days the challenge is choosing which number to follow. That’s the case for three venture funding studies for Africa that turned up varied results. The numbers and variance Investment stats released by media outlet Disrupt Africa, data-base ...

Now that the world is swimming in data we may be able to address the climate and environmental risks to the planet. But while there is plenty of capital to invest in things like ClimateTech, a lot of the data that’s needed to tackle this big issue is badly applied, leading to a big misallocation ...