Bloomberg President Jair Bolsonaro followed Donald Trump’s playbook as he urged Brazilians to resume normal life to protect the economy even as cases of coronavirus swell. Defying the medical advice to pursue social distancing, the Brazilian president lashed out at state governors who have ordered shops and schools closed to slow down the pandemic that threatens to overwhelm the health ...

Bloomberg The British government is planning to shut down Parliament for four weeks from Wednesday night in the latest attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus. The UK outbreak is most advanced in London and several politicians have fallen ill, including a health minister. Parliament had been scheduled to break for Easter on March 31, but the House of Commons ...

Bloomberg Climate activist Greta Thunberg says she has recovered after being infected with the coronavirus on a trip to central Europe. In an Instagram post, the Swedish teenager said she’s isolated herself in a borrowed apartment after returning to her home country. She says she started feeling mild symptoms of the disease around the same time her father became more ...

Bloomberg Holding a general election in Singapore before April 2021 is not “impossible” although the present situation may not be ideal as the country tackles the coronavirus outbreak, Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean said. Singapore needs a government that the people have confidence in “to take us through this unprecedented situation”, Teo told parliament on Wednesday. He added that the ...

Bloomberg Stocks clung to gains globally along with US equity futures on Wednesday while investors examined government rescue packages to counter the hit from the coronavirus, after one of the best days on Wall Street in a generation. Futures on the three main American equity indexes fluctuated before turning higher in the wake of March 25’s historic surge, after the ...

Bloomberg Investment chiefs at two Indian life insurance companies are keeping money in stocks despite selling by overseas funds that has put the nation’s benchmark index on course for a record monthly decline. The S&P BSE Sensex has plunged 30% so far in March as the coronavirus-led wave of risk aversion has prompted foreign investors to dump local stocks at ...

Bloomberg It is fair to say that short sellers have won this round. These investors, who typically bet on the price of an equity or asset going down, have made a killing amid the broader selloff that has roiled US financial markets for the past month. The time has now come to protect those profits before stocks start potentially rebounding. ...

Bloomberg As the shortage of dollars sweeps the globe, cracks are starting to show up in Asia’s emerging markets, despite the hefty foreign-reserve cushions built up over the years. The squeeze on US currency is putting pressure on emerging Asia debt. Southeast Asian and Indian government and corporate payments are set to jump 67% in 2022 to $41.9 billion, according ...

Bloomberg The amount of cash circulating in the euro area increased last week by the most since October 2008, in the latest sign that the coronavirus pandemic has sparked the biggest economic crunch at least since the global financial crisis. Cash jumped by almost 19 billion euros ($20 billion), according to European Central Bank data. The ECB’s total balance sheet ...

Bloomberg Malaysia’s banks will offer broader loan deferrals that will involve 100 billion ringgit ($23 billion) of funds as the country seeks more ways to soften the pandemic’s impact on its economy. Banks will offer six-month deferrals for all loans held by individuals and small businesses and let people convert their credit card debt into a three-year term loan, the ...