| Bernie Sanders Drops Out of the 2020 Presidential Race |
| Sen. Bernie Sanders (I.-Vt.) suspended his campaign on Wednesday. The Vermont senator, once widely viewed as the front-runner in the Democratic primary, had fallen behind Joe Biden in the race for delegates after several candidates dropped out and endorsed the former vice president.
Biden is now the Democrats’ presumptive nominee to take on President Donald Trump in November. Efforts to curtail the spread of coronavirus may have been the last nail in the coffin for the Sanders campaign. A number of states pushed back their primaries, and both candidates have suspended campaign events and rallies to prevent the spread of the virus. |
| Continue reading › |
| Stocks Are Back in a Bull Market. That Doesn’t Mean the Bear Is Over. |
| Investor optimism about a possible turning point in the battle against Covid-19 boosted the S&P 500 into a new bull market on Wednesday, defined by a 20% gain from its low point. Yet just because a bull market may be beginning doesn’t mean a bear market can’t return.
Yes, the stock market is rallying. The S&P 500 rose 3.4% on Wednesday, following a 7% jump on Monday and a slight dip on Tuesday. The growth rates of new cases of the virus and related fatalities have slowed in recent days in many of the outbreak’s hot spots around the world. It’s far from an all-clear signal for overburdened hospitals and the economy, but the news has spurred a frenzy of buying nonetheless. |
| Continue reading › |
| Fed Minutes Reveal Increasing Urgency to Cushion Economy |
| Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s rate-setting committee’s two emergency meetings in March show growing panic over the financial and economic toll of the coronavirus outbreak, prompting unprecedented action by the central bank to support markets and the U.S. economy.
At the same time, the minutes also reflect how quickly the U.S. economy deteriorated and the urgency of the Fed’s effort to engineer a soft landing for the economy after the sharpest, quickest hit since the Great Depression. |
| Continue reading › |
| A Plan to Restart the Economy Within Weeks Would Rely on Antibody Testing |
| The Trump administration is preparing a plan to restart the U.S. economy that relies on widespread testing to allow workers to get back to work, Bloomberg reported Tuesday evening.
According to the Bloomberg report, the plan would begin by relaxing restrictions in small cities that haven’t seen a boom in Covid-19 cases. The plan could be put into effect in as little as four weeks. The plan could rely on blood tests that determine whether people have previously been exposed to the virus and might be immune. |
| Continue reading › |
| McDonald’s Same-Store Sales Fell in March |
| As the coronavirus pandemic keeps customers at home and forces restaurants to shut dine-in options, McDonald’s reported Wednesday that its global same-store sales fell 22% in March despite 7.2% growth in January and February combined. For the first quarter, the fast-food chain said its global same-store sales fell 3.4% from last year. Analysts polled by FactSet had projected growth to be nearly flat for the quarter.
Despite the falling sales, McDonald’s is often viewed as a defensive play given its stable fundamentals and competitive advantages over other restaurant chains. The stock has lost 11% year to date, holding up better than most of its restaurant peers in the S&P 500, which tumbled an average of 18% during the same period. |
| Continue reading › |
| Tesla Plans to Restart Production in May, but It’s Cutting Salaries and Making Furloughs |
| Tesla is planning to restart idled production at its flagship Fremont, Calif., plant May 4. That’s good news for investors, who have been concerned about the auto maker’s cash and liquidity and wondering how long the Covid-19 pause will last.
If the production restart is the good news, salary cuts—also reported Wednesday—are the bad news. Vice presidents and above will receive temporary 30% pay cuts. Directors and up will take a 20% cut. Other U.S. employees will see pay cuts of 10%, with similar cuts planned for overseas workers. Pay cuts are expected to last through the second quarter. Reduced pay might be better than no pay at all. Hourly workers are being furloughed until May 4. Tesla employs about 48,000 people—salaried and hourly—worldwide. |
| Continue reading › |
| GM to Make 30,000 Ventilators for National Stockpile Under $489 Million Contract |
| General Motors Co. is making 30,000 ventilators for the national stockpile in a $489.4 million contract with the Department of Health and Human Services, as surging Covid-19 cases have tested medical capacities across the U.S.
Under the contract, struck under the Defense Production Act, GM is expected to deliver 6,132 ventilators by June 1 and the remainder by the end of August, the department said Wednesday. |
| Continue reading › |
| The Fed Gives Wells Fargo a Break for Now So It Can Make Small-Business Loans |
| Wells Fargo got a slight reprieve from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, allowing it to make more loans to small businesses harmed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The San Francisco-based bank had been in the regulator’s penalty box since 2018 because of the millions of bogus accounts it had created, without customers’ knowledge, to meet aggressive sales targets. The Fed imposed a $1.95 trillion asset cap on Well Fargo, preventing it from expanding its balance sheet. |
| Continue reading › |
| FedEx, UPS Shares Jump Because Amazon Is Halting Its Rival Delivery Service |
| Shares of logistics giants FedEx and United Parcel Service rose on Wednesday because of something Amazon.com decided to stop doing.
The online retail behemoth will no longer offer delivery of packages not connected to Amazon’s own e-commerce platform, removing an overhang from the parcel-delivery sector. That is good news for FedEx and UPS, which have lagged behind peers in recent weeks. |
| Continue reading › |
| Boeing Has New Problems With the 737 MAX Jet’s Software |
| The commercial aerospace giant Boeing has run into new hiccups with the software for the 737 MAX, but the company says the latest problems won’t derail its plan to return the grounded jet to commercial service.
Boeing said one issue involves “hypothetical faults” in the flight-control computer microprocessor, which could potentially lead to a runaway stabilizer. The second issue discovered led to the unexpected engagement of autopilot during final approach. The company said the changes it’s making to fix these issues aren’t related to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, which was linked to two fatal MAX crashes. |
| Continue reading › |
