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Asian markets rose on Thursday, carried by optimism overnight on Wall Street that a new drug could help to treat Covid-19. The sentiment was more mixed as Europe’s biggest financial capitals began the trading day.
Futures trading pointed to a positive open for Wall Street on Thursday.
In London, the FTSE 100 was flat in early trading. Germany’s DAX fell by 0.1 percent while France’s CAC 40 was up 0.2 percent.
In the Asia-Pacific region, investors were more bullish ahead of the long weekend. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 jumped by 2.1 percent. China’s Shanghai Composite gained 1.3 percent, while in Shenzhen stocks were up 1.9 percent. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.7 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is closed for a holiday.
Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 rose 2.4 percent.
The rally in Asia was a continuation of a strong day on Wall Street on Wednesday, where the S&P 500 gained 2.7 percent, boosted by news from drugmaker Gilead Science that it had positive results from a trial for an antiviral drug known as remdesivir. It is being tested as a possible treatment for Covid-19.
This news was also a boon to Chinese drugmakers that make some of the ingredients in Gilead’s new drug.
Chinese markets rallied after data about the services sector for the month of April was firmer than expected. But other data released still underscored the gap in demand for Chinese-made products overseas.
Broader positive sentiment was on display in commodities markets, too, as the price of oil continued a rally following news from Norway, a major oil producer, that it would limit production, something that will lift sagging prices. The price of the U.S. benchmark, the West Texas Intermediate, jumped 13 percent to $17.06, while Brent, the international benchmark, rose nearly 7 percent to $25.97 a barrel.
The price of gold also rallied.
The yield on United States 10-year treasuries fell to 0.61 percent.
The number of new unemployment claims each week has been declining. But as the American economy continues to stagger under the weight of the coronavirus pandemic, that is scant comfort.
Another grim reckoning is expected Thursday at 8:30 a.m., when the Labor Department reports the tally of claims for last week. The consensus forecast cited by Bloomberg is 3.5 million, though some economists see a number closer to four million.
That would bring the six-week total to the cusp of 30 million jobless claims, despite trillions in stimulus spending and a rush to reopen shuttered businesses in some states.
Many state agencies still find themselves overwhelmed by the flood of claims, leaving perhaps millions with dwindling resources to pay the rent or put food on the table.
If anything, according to many economists, the job losses may be far worse than government figures indicate. A study by the Economic Policy Institute found that roughly 50 percent more people than counted as filing claims in a recent four-week period may have qualified for benefits but were stymied in applying or didn’t even try because they found the process too daunting.
“The problem is even bigger than the data suggest,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist with the institute, a left-leaning research group. “We’re undercounting the economic pain.”
Norway will cut oil production by 250,000 barrels a day, or about 13 percent, in June and by 134,000 barrels a day for the rest of 2020, the country’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy said. The move “will contribute to a faster stabilization of the oil market” than leaving matters to market forces, the ministry said in a statement.
Demand for oil has collapsed as the coronavirus pandemic has led to the grounding of most of the world’s commercial aircraft, as well as the sharp curtailment of road traffic. The resulting oversupply of oil threatens to outstrip storage facilities and is forcing oil companies around the world to throttle back production.
Norway’s cuts will add to the 9.7 million barrels a day in cuts that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and other nations agreed to on April 12. Tina Bru, the Norwegian energy minister, said that Norway was acting “on an independent basis and with Norwegian interests at heart.”
The move, though, is likely to spark optimism among traders that oil-producing countries are taking more coordinated actions to deal with the glut. The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose by almost 10 percent Thursday to $24.75 a barrel, but it remains down more than 60 percent since the beginning of the year.
The Norwegian government said that the output trims would be “fairly distributed” among oil fields and operators and that the start-ups of several fields would be delayed until 2021.
Stocks rallied on Wednesday, bolstered by indications that a drug being tested as a possible treatment for Covid-19 could be showing progress, and as investors pinned their hopes on the gradual reopening of the world’s major economies.
The S&P 500 gained nearly 3 percent, while shares in Europe were also sharply higher.
The rally came despite data that showed the U.S. economy shrank in the first quarter of the year by the most since 2008. Earnings reports from Volkswagen, Samsung, Airbus, Boeing and other giant businesses were also grim.
But investors have been shaking off bad news on the economy for weeks as they focus on progress on efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic. A steady climb has lifted the S&P 500 by more than 31 percent since its March 23 low. With nearly half that gain coming in April, the month is on track to be the best for stocks since 1974, according to data from Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst for S&P Dow Jones Indices.
The trading on Wednesday had all the hallmarks of a rally fueled by hopes of a return to normal, with shares of airlines and cruise operators — both industries that are dependent on the end of restrictions and the return of travelers — among the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500. Oil producers also rallied as the price of crude oil surged.
A rally in the stocks of large technology companies, which have an outsize impact on the overall market, also helped. Alphabet rose nearly 9 percent the day after it reported quarterly results that were better than expected, and Facebook was more than 6 percent higher.
Before trading began Wednesday, the drugmaker Gilead Sciences said it was “aware of positive data” emerging from a trial of its antiviral drug being conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The drug, remdesivir, is being tested as a treatment for Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.
Tesla on Wednesday reported a steep drop in net income in the first quarter compared with the previous quarter, as the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the electric-car maker’s operations in the United States and China, its two largest markets.
Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive, said the company would continue to face difficulties as long as it was forced to keep its plant in Fremont, Calif., closed under the state’s stay-at-home order.
“We are a bit worried about when we will be able to resume production in the Bay Area,” Mr. Musk said on a conference call with reporters.
He went on to say the stay-at-home order was “fascist” and amounted to “forcibly imprisoning people in their homes against all their constitutional rights.”
“They’re breaking people’s freedoms in ways that are wrong and are not why people came here or built this country,” he said.
California imposed the lockdown in March and required all nonessential businesses to close. But Tesla told employees at the Fremont plant to report to work unless they were sick, or to take vacation days if they stayed at home. The local sheriff’s office forced the company to obey the state order and close the plant.
Tesla’s plant in Shanghai has resumed production.
On Wednesday, the company reported $16 million in net income for the first three months of the year, a drop of 85 percent compared with the fourth quarter. Revenue in the quarter totaled $6 billion, a 20 percent drop from the previous quarter.
Tesla declined to offer guidance for the second quarter because of the uncertain economic and public health outlook. The company’s shares surged 10 percent after the market closed.
A little over two weeks ago, SoftBank warned investors to be prepared for its annual earnings results to be a blood bath, as the coronavirus cratered the value of its investments in risky tech start-ups. On Thursday, it said the damage could be even worse than expected, adding an additional $1.4 billion to its expected losses from the deterioration of its WeWork holdings.
The new warning brings the total of Softbank’s anticipated net loss in the fiscal year ending in March to 900 billion yen, or $8.4 billion, adding another asterisk to the reputation of the company’s chief executive, Masayoshi Son, and his goal of becoming an epoch-making tech investor.
Mr. Son has used his enormous influence to position SoftBank as the world’s largest tech investor, deploying his $100 billion Vision Fund to catapult promising and sometimes risky young tech companies, like Uber and the hotel operator Oyo, from obscurity to fame and fortune.
The newly reported figures have been driven down “primarily” by investments made outside of the Vision Fund, including in WeWork, the co-working start-up, SoftBank said in a statement. It said that losses at the company were projected to be in excess of 1 trillion yen.
Earlier this month, the company announced that it expected to take a $16.7 billion write-down on its investments in the Vision Fund, a loss that would be offset by revenue from the conglomerate’s other businesses, including its profitable Japanese telecom company.
The fund’s portfolio, which is heavy on investments in ride-sharing and real estate companies, has been hit hard by plummeting demand for its star companies’ services amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Softbank’s investment in WeWork has metamorphosed from eagle to albatross over the past year, as WeWork’s promising plans for an initial public offering imploded amid accusations of mismanagement and self-dealing.
The deluge of first-quarter reports this week is giving investors a detailed look at how the start of the coronavirus crisis affected businesses. Of course, second-quarter earnings this year may well be even more grim.
Facebook cautioned Wall Street that it could face intensifying difficulties in its advertising business as the spread of the coronavirus ripples through the global economy, although the falloff in spending has stabilized. The company’s revenue in the first quarter rose 18 percent to $17.74 billion from a year earlier, while profit more than doubled to $4.9 billion, surpassing Wall Street estimates. A year earlier, Facebook had taken a $3 billion charge to pay for a privacy settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.
Microsoft reported strong growth in sales and profits for the quarter ended in March, saying that the coronavirus outbreak had “minimal net impact” on its financial performance. Revenue rose 15 percent to $35 billion, compared with the analysts’ consensus forecast of $33.66 billion. Its operating earnings per share rose 23 percent to $1.40 a share in the quarter. That was well above the average estimate of Wall Street analysts of $1.26 a share, as compiled by Refinitiv, a research firm.
Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, said on Thursday that it would cut its dividend for the first time since World War II as the company reported a loss of $24 million for the quarter compared to $6 billion in profits in the period a year earlier. The company said it was reducing its dividend, which pension funds and other investors rely on for income, by about two-thirds to 16 cents a share, citing the risk of a prolonged period of weak oil prices because of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
FedEx said on Wednesday that it would not take federal funds earmarked to pay employees under the CARES Act, one day after UPS announced the same. Lawmakers had set aside $25 billion in grants for passenger airlines and $4 billion for cargo carriers to pay workers, though the Treasury Department later classified a portion of the funds for airlines as a loan.
Reporting was contributed by Stanley Reed, Ben Dooley, Nelson D. Schwartz, Alexandra Stevenson, Niraj Chokshi, Neal E. Boudette, Steve Lohr and Mike Isaac.
Three streets and a park will be enhanced and repaired through nearly $350,000 in improvement projects unanimously approved by the Newport City Commission.
The city will spend $336,726.45 for the projects on Grandview Avenue, Fort Beech and Poplar Streets and the Mussman Park recreation complex, according to Newport Mayor Jerry Peluso.
Mayor Jerry Peluso
Following are the projects funded by the City Commission:
Fort Beech Road and Poplar Street
The portion of Fort Beech Road that is in Newport was approved for repair in conjunction with the City of Southgate’s work to rebuild the street. The project to correct pavement deterioration is anticipated to begin shortly and will be completed within the month by Eaton Asphalt.
Poplar Street west of Joyce Street is also scheduled to be milled and resurfaced in conjunction with the work on Fort Beech Road. This portion of the project will also begin soon and require approximately two days to complete. Eaton Asphalt was also selected for this project.
Grandview Avenue Stabilization Project
A portion of Grandview Avenue between Central Avenue and McHenry Street will soon be under construction to correct a slide. The work will be performed by Sherzinger Drilling and consist of the installation of drilled shafts and some wood lagging to support Grandview Avenue.
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The project is anticipated to begin within a month and take 30 to 60 days to complete. Road closures and parking restrictions are likely during this time. This work is a continuation of past projects to stabilize various sections of Grandview Avenue, which is located on a hillside and has been prone to sliding. Engineering work for this project began last year in preparation for this needed repair.
Mussman Park
A project to repair the tennis and basketball courts at the popular recreation complex on the campus of Newport High School was approved by the commission after a long process to determine the correct level of repairs needed to restore the facility.
JK Meurer was selected to complete this work, which is scheduled to begin soon. The project is anticipated to last 30-60 days. Work consists of repairing cracked surfaces, resurfacing and seal coating. Work has been in the planning stages for years as the city awaited the necessary funds to complete this important project.
Newport City Manager Tom Fromme said the decision to fund the projects shows the City Commission’s recognition that even as the community struggles with the restrictions and other difficulties of the COVID-19 virus, the important work of public improvements must go on.
“I want to thank the Board of Commissioners for their continuing commitment to maintain our infrastructure, especially during these difficult times,” Fromme said.
From City of Newport
Dayton Public Schools will absorb the Mound Street Academy dropout prevention and recovery school for next school year, according to a resolution the school board approved Wednesday.
Mound Street operates as a charter school sponsored by St. Aloysius Orphanage at the corner of Mound and Germantown in West Dayton. Superintendent Elizabeth Lolli said the school approached DPS when St. Aloysius told Mound Street it would not renew the sponsorship for 2020-21.
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Mound Street serves students in grades 9-12 in a dropout prevention and recovery model, with a current enrollment of about 155 students. The school uses the same Apex Learning curriculum that DPS uses to help some of its students with credit recovery when they fall behind.
Lolli said next year, Mound Street will continue to offer a dropout prevention structure, but will operate as a regular DPS school, not a charter school. She said the current building at 354 Mound St. will eventually have to be sold, but the plan is for them to operate out of that building next year.
Under Ohio’s separate standards for dropout prevention schools, Mound Street got an overall “does not meet standards” rating on its most recent state report card. It was dinged for poor test passage rates and student progress, while meeting standards on gap closing and graduation rate.
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Until this school year, DPS had served as the sponsor for another dropout prevention school — the Dayton Business Technology High School on West First Street downtown. That school is now sponsored by the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of School Sponsorship.
Lolli said DPS eventually hopes to increase enrollment at Mound Street by identifying students who are at risk of dropping out of other DPS schools and checking whether the Mound Street model would be a better fit for them.
She said DPS will review ODE data suggesting the school might be overstaffed, but DPS will otherwise retain current Mound Street staff.
Mound Street was previously organized into three different schools — Military Academy, Health Careers Academy and IT Careers Academy — before consolidating into one. Lolli said DPS will not make major changes to the model right away.
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“The structure that’s in place, from what I can tell on paper without observing, we likely will keep that,” Lolli said. “Then we’ll make some decisions after we see how Mound Street operates. I don’t think it’s prudent to go in and turn them upside down without doing analysis and careful thought on that.”
In its resolution Wednesday the board authorized Lolli to carry out any necessary administrative tasks related to “staffing, assets, and communications with current students,” in coordination with Mound Street and state officials.
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ALLENTOWN, Pa. | Police are asking drivers to avoid the area of a significant water main break as crews respond to repair it.
Allentown police are reporting a "major" water main break on South 17th Street just south of Walnut Street. The water main is a 30-inch diameter high-pressure water line that serves water storage and pumping facilities in portions of the city and surrounding communities, the Lehigh County Authority said in a news release. Widespread pressure fluctuations are expected.
Residents reported water outages to the LCA beginning at approximately 12:30 p.m. Wednesday. Widespread service outages are expected.
Viewer video shows water rushing down 17th Street. A vehicle was partially swallowed.
LCA crews are on the scene to turn the water off to this section of the water distribution system so they can begin assessing damage and developing a plan for the repair.
Residents are advised to stop using water if possible and avoid the area. Significant traffic disruptions are expected due to street flooding and repair work. Customers who are out of water service or who are experiencing brown or cloudy water are asked to avoid calling LCA at this time due to very high call volume.
The cause of the break is unknown at this time. LCA crews will be on the scene until the situation is under control.
No one was injured.
Additional updates will be posted on LCA’s website as well as on their social media sites on Facebook and Twitter.
First, the department store closes. Then, the apparel shops try to scoot out of deals. This is a one-two punch that could trigger a wave of malls shutting for good over the next 12 months.
More than 50% of the department stores anchoring America's malls are going to close permanently by the end of next year, a new report from Green Street Advisors predicts. There are about 1,000 malls still open in the U.S. And roughly 60% of those have department store retailers, such as Macy's, as anchor tenants, the commercial real estate services firm said.
The coronavirus pandemic that has slammed the U.S. economy is speeding up the demise of department stores. As Covid-19 forced the likes of J.C. Penney, Macy's, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus to shut shops temporarily, the circumstances became even more dire for these already struggling companies. Slumping sales and an overhang of debt could push some into bankruptcy. Strained for cash, these retailers are scrambling for additional liquidity. More department store closures are inevitable. And that will put another level of pressure on mall owners.
Up until now, it has been years of "kicking the can down the road," said Vince Tibone, an analyst at Green Street Advisors.
One likely scenario to play out at malls is that in-line tenants — such as Gap or Victoria's Secret — will use their co-tenancy clauses to speak up as department stores go dark. Put simply, these clauses give companies the ability to demand rent relief, or to break leases early, when anchor space sits vacant. That pressure could be what puts some malls entirely out of business.
"Many malls will now be faced with multiple anchor vacancies, a tough place to come back from, especially in an environment where demand for space is virtually non-existent," Tibone said. "This begs many questions. What will a mall redevelopment look like post-Covid? Backfilling with any retail could be tough and most non-retail development now likely doesn't pencil."
Dallas-headquartered Penney, which has more than 850 stores, makes up about 19% of mall anchor space, Green Street said. Macy's is about 18%, while Sears is still 4%. And other department store operators (i.e. Nordstrom, Dillard's and Lord & Taylor) make up another 20% of America's mall anchor space, according to the report.
Mall owners' finances are also being strained, as a number of tenants including Gap are not paying rent during the pandemic. That could mean some landlords aren't able to make their own mortgage payments, and end up having to hand the keys to malls back to lenders.
Some, like Simon Property Group, have better balance sheets to weather the storm, analysts tell CNBC. Others have less time to spare.
CBL, which owns a number of malls in the Southeast including WestGate Mall in Spartanburg, South Carolina, has hired investment bank Moelis & Co. and law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges to seek advice on strategic and financing options, including restructuring, according a Bloomberg report. A CBL representative did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.
Green Street is predicting that retailers' rent-paying ability will be impacted for years because of the pandemic.
"The only certainty is that there will be far fewer department stores in the future and malls will need to adapt," Green Street's Tibone said.
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