Month: March 2020

Top news and what to watch in the markets on Thursday, March 19, 2020. …read more […]

Readers hoping to buy Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO) for its dividend will need to make their move shortly, as the stock… …read more […]

Regular readers will know that we love our dividends at Simply Wall St, which is why it’s exciting to see Lam Research… …read more […]

Economists absolutely love to make forecasts. It’s what they do. And it doesn’t matter if the supporting data for their projections is paper-thin (it often is). It’s when they decline to make a forecast that I get worried. And it has me wondering: how bad will the 2020 recession be?
On Sunday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced a nearly unprecedented “monetary bazooka.” The central bank cut rates to approximately zero. And relaunched a major bond-purchasing program known as quantitative easing.
Fed watchers like me were expecting such extreme measures from Powell & Co., given the damage the pandemic is doing to …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Three of the world’s leading airlines laid bare the devastation the coronavirus is inflicting on air travel, with Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Delta Air Lines Inc. parking a total of 1,500 planes and Qantas Airways Ltd. laying off close to 30,000 employees in some of the industry’s deepest cuts to date.The measures at Lufthansa, Europe’s biggest carrier, go furthest, with Chief Executive Officer Carsten Spohr saying Thursday he’ll eliminate 95% of seats, shrinking the timetable to a level last seen in 1955. Delta is grounding half the fleet to wipe out 70% of capacity, while Qantas, which has …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Central bankers around the world are slashing interest rates as the economic pain from coronavirus spreads. But Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina may find her hands tied after the ruble’s plunge this year extended to more than 22%.Most economists expect the central bank to hold the key rate at 6% at its meeting on Friday, and some say the ruble’s slide beyond 80 per dollar may justify an increase. Options markets are pricing in about 190 basis points of tightening in the next three months.The ruble rebounded a bit on Thursday after the central bank said it …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — India’s rupee weakened to a new low and stocks slumped anew amid a global meltdown in risk assets, with rising number of coronavirus cases locally adding to anxiety. Sovereign bonds also declined.The rupee declined as much as 1.1% to 75.0562 per dollar to go past the key 75 mark for the first time. The S&P BSE Sensex index pared losses of as much as 7.5% to still trade at levels last seen in 2017, while the NSE Nifty 50 Index recovered partially from lows seen in the weeks after the government’s cash ban in November 2016.Global funds have …read more […]

…read more […]

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization said it was in talks with China and others to help ramp up supplies of health equipment, while General Motors and Ford Motor said they were in talks with White House officials. “We will make ventilators if there is a shortage,” Musk said on Twitter, responding to a fan’s suggestion that the billionaire repurpose a factory for the task. …read more […]

…read more […]

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Crude oil traders from West Africa to the U.S. Gulf Coast are offering cargoes at deep discounts, desperately trying to attract buyers as global supplies swell and demand plunges. Oil prices have plummeted to 18-year lows as the global spread of the coronavirus has throttled back air and road travel at the same time as major producers are hiking production after Russia refused to back deeper output cuts at a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies. The sudden collapse in demand has resulted in a glut of unsold, …read more […]