Three Financial Facts of the Week: February 17, 2016

Fact #1
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the past 50 years, every recession has seen the number of jobs in the economy decline by at least 1%, and have never declined by that much outside of a recession. Today, the number of jobs in the U.S. has been growing briskly—up 2.7 million in 2015.
Source: Wall Street Journal

Fact #2
According to FactSet, despite average intra-year drops of 14.2%, annual returns have been positive in 27 out of 36 years for the S&P 500 since 1980.
Source: FactSet

Fact #3
Nasdaq Private Market, a unit of exchange operator Nasdaq Inc. that provides software to private companies to manage employee share sales, says private startups bought back $940 million of employee stock last year via its platform, an increase of more than 40% from 2014.
Source: Wall Street Journal