Billionaire Bill Ackman is raising his bet that the migration of Americans to warmer and lower-tax cities is here to stay. (Wall Street Journal)

His Pershing Square Capital Management LP recently increased its stake in Howard Hughes Corp. to nearly 25%. The Houston-based developer is ramping up construction of multifamily housing in Texas, Maryland, Hawaii and Las Vegas.

The momentum against GameStop picked up Tuesday, with shares closing down 60% after a big drop Monday. Other once-hot stocks–AMC, Koss, Express– fell alongside the day-trader favorite, while silver also took a leg down (Wall Street Journal)

Meanwhile, the broader market finished up as the S&P 500 rose 1.4%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.6% as did the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index.

President Biden made his first move on trade by reinstating tariffs on aluminum exported from the United Arab Emirates. This reverses former President Trump’s decision to lift them on his last day in office. (New York Times)

The decision is one of Mr. Biden’s first significant moves on trade and suggests that his administration may be inclined to maintain the type of hefty tariffs Mr. Trump imposed on foreign metals to protect domestic industry. That position found favor with unions, but disappointed industries and businesses that have argued the tariffs raise costs.

GameStop’s rally came to a screeching halt this week as the shares dropped below the $100 milestone level. (Bloomberg)

The stock tumbled to $75 at 10:49 a.m. in New York, meaning it has now given up nearly 85% of the spectacular gains that were fueled by last month’s attack on short sellers. The video-game retailer’s market value has dwindled by more than $28 billion to $5.8 billion from a Thursday intraday peak, though the stock is still up more than 300% year-to-date.

The U.S. Census Bureau found that the homeownership and rental vacancy rate were statistically unchanged in the fourth quarter of 2020 (Census Bureau)

National vacancy rates in the fourth quarter 2020 were 6.5 percent for rental housing and 1.0 percent for homeowner housing. The rental vacancy rate of 6.5 percent was not statistically different from the rate in the fourth quarter 2019 (6.4 percent) and not statistically different from the rate in the third quarter 2020 (6.4 percent). The homeowner vacancy rate of 1.0 percent was 0.4 percentage points lower than the rate in the fourth quarter 2019 (1.4 percent) and not statistically different from the rate in the third quarter 2020 (0.9 percent).

CoreLogic released its December Home Price Insights report that found almost double-digit growth for the year and 1% appreciation for the month (CoreLogic)

National home prices increased 9.2% year over year in December 2020, according to the latest CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI^®) Report. The December 2020 HPI gain was up from the December 2019 gain of 4% and was the highest year-over-year gain since February 2014. Price appreciation averaged 5.7% for full year 2020, up from the 2019 full year average of 3.8%. Home price growth in 2020 started off at a modest 4.3% rate in the first quarter, but as the pandemic limited supply throughout 2020, home price growth picked up, ending the year with an increase of 8.3% for the fourth quarter. While home price growth is expected to slow during 2021, it will remain high in the first half of the year and average growth for this year is expected to climb to 6.9%.