The coronavirus pandemic has closed schools, shuttered restaurants, emptied office buildings, put PM Boris Johnson in intensive care and forced much of the UK economy into cryogenic suspension. So far, though, it hasn’t derailed Brexit. Fronting the daily UK press conference, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak affirmed that the government was committed to its current timetable for trade talks ...

Global health emergencies will be a fact of life in the 21st century. So, too, will be the World Health Organization’s (WHO) chronic inability to rise to the occasion. President Donald Trump is hoping that the body’s failures in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic can be corrected with punishment. The US will halt payments to the WHO to hold it ...

There is no safe way to emerge from our collective shelter-in-place orders and restart the economy before an effective Covid-19 vaccine arrives — but there are smart, science-based ways to do it. The question can’t be left entirely up to experts. It’s not a safety problem so much as an ethical one; many of us would accept a certain risk ...

Bloomberg Stocks in Europe edged lower while American equity-index futures retreated as investors scoured corporate earnings to gauge the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. The dollar ticked higher and Treasuries rose. The Stoxx Europe 600 index declined for the first time in five trading days. ASML Holding NV, a crucial supplier to Samsung Electronics Co., reported a 40% drop in ...

Bloomberg India stocks rose, with the benchmark gauge set to close in bull territory, ahead of earnings reports that may give some insight into the outlook for companies under lockdown in the world’s second-most populous country. The S&P BSE Sensex advanced 2.5% to 31,450.11 as of 10:06 am in Mumbai, while the NSE Nifty 50 Index climbed by the same ...

Bloomberg With Bitcoin trading below $7,000, technical indicators show it’s nearing a key inflection point. Based on its drop over the past week, the biggest cryptocurrency is drifting in a narrow trading band, with support at $6,500 on the downside and strong resistance at $7,000 on any potential increases. However, the GTI Vera Convergence Divergence Indicator, which measures up and ...

Bloomberg China’s central bank injected medium-term funding into the financial system on Wednesday and cut the cost of the funds as expected, bolstering measures aimed at countering the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. The People’s Bank of China offered 100 billion yuan ($14 billion) via the one-year medium-term lending facility, cutting the rate to 2.95% from 3.15%. The reduction ...

Bloomberg More than one in ten mortgage borrowers in the UK have taken a payment holiday, less than a month after banks offered relief to those affected by the coronavirus pandemic. About 1.2 million customers were granted a mortgage holiday between March 17 and April 8, according to lobby group UK Finance. Banks trebled the number of breaks they gave ...

Bloomberg South Africa’s central bank unexpectedly cut its benchmark interest rate to a record low to support an economy that’s projected to slump even deeper into recession after the government extended a nationwide lockdown in response to the coronavirus. The repurchase rate was reduced to 4.25% from 5.25%, the South African Reserve Bank said in an emailed statement. The decision ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. said first-quarter profit tumbled 69% to the lowest in more than six years as credit costs surged, giving investors a first glimpse at the extent of the damage Covid-19 is wreaking on bank results. The company set aside $8.29 billion for bad loans, the biggest provision in at least a decade and more than double ...