In 2017, the British billionaire Richard Branson agreed to cut his stake in Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd to just 20% by selling one-third of the airline to Air France-KLM. In December, he had a change of heart about that 220 million-pound ($274 million) deal, and opted to keep his shareholding in the company he founded at 51%. America’s Delta Air ...

Bloomberg Stocks jumped in Europe and Asia alongside US equity futures after the reported death tolls in some of the world’s coronavirus hot spots showed signs of easing over the weekend. The dollar strengthened and Treasuries fell. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index opened solidly higher after Italy said it had the fewest deaths in more than two weeks, while France ...

Bloomberg Asia stocks are not out of the woods yet, despite the recent bear-market rally, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Investors who may be getting optimistic that markets across the region have bottomed should resist that notion, strategists led by Timothy Moe said in a note on Monday. The MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan Index has rebounded some 12% since ...

Bloomberg A slowdown in the growth rate of new US coronavirus cases may help put a floor under stocks and dampen volatility, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. The Cboe Volatility Index has been tracking data associated with the global spread of cases and has shown a relationship with growth at the US state level, technical strategists Jason Hunter and ...

Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) cut the amount of cash that some banks have to put aside as reserves, injecting liquidity to encourage lending as the world’s second-largest economy is set for the slowest growth since 1976. The required reserve ratio (RRR) for rural banks and small city commercial banks will be lowered 1 percentage point, the PBOC ...

Bloomberg The Federal Reserve has further dialed back the pace at which it plans to buy Treasuries under its unlimited quantitative easing program. The US central bank, which has been aggressively purchasing Treasuries in a bid to offset the economic and market fallout from the coronavirus pandemic said that it would dial back the daily pace of buying to $50 ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to buy out its local partner to get full control of a Chinese mutual fund joint venture, taking advantage of the latest move by Beijing to open up the nation’s asset management and securities businesses to foreign firms. The US bank is buying a 49% stake held by Shanghai International Trust Co. to take ...

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc. made more than $100 million trading a huge swath of the highest-rated collateralised loan obligations as market turmoil prompted asset managers in need of liquidity to unload securities at steep discounts. Citigroup bought roughly $2 billion of AAA rated CLO bonds in late March at around 90 cents on the dollar from PGIM, the investment management business ...

Bloomberg Half a million of Bank of America Corp.’s (BofA) 66 million customers have deferred loan payments because of financial fallout from the coronavirus. “The idea is to defer the payment, defer the impact,” Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan said in an interview on CNBC. “We’re working with our customers who need help, who are losing their jobs. We have ...

Bloomberg Euro-area governments are ramping up their bond sales, but there are few signs of investor fatigue with the European Central Bank (ECB) increasing its purchases. Yields from Germany to Italy climbed after debt management offices sold more than 40 billion euros ($43 billion) of bonds, the most in seven years, according to Commerzbank AG. However, investors have stepped up ...