Bloomberg President Donald Trump is stepping up his campaign to oust Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro with the coronavirus pandemic and plunging oil prices threatening to worsen a humanitarian disaster years in the making. The Trump administration says its restrictions don’t prohibit humanitarian aid from flowing to Venezuela, the same argument it makes when pressed about sanctions on Iran. As a result, ...

Bloomberg Spain saw a decline in the number of new deaths from the coronavirus for the third consecutive day, raising hopes that the worst of the country’s outbreak may be over. The Health Ministry reported 674 fatalities in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 12,418. The number of confirmed cases rose to 130,759, from 124,736 a day earlier. ...

Bloomberg Record low interest rates are tempting some retail investors in Singapore to load up on debt to buy shares, just as the coronavirus outbreak creates the most volatile markets since the global financial crisis. Earlier this year, 31-year-old insurance agent Heng Kai Sheng got advances on three separate credit cards to the tune of S$150,000 ($105,000). With the money, ...

Bloomberg For the longest time, Canadian real estate investment trusts were a stalwart for income investors. Now, dividend payments hang in the balance as commercial and residential tenants struggle to pay rent during a pandemic that has shut down much of the economy. Typically seen as a place to get a high, safe payout in a world of low bond ...

Bloomberg The bad-asset bank created when a group of Russia’s biggest private lenders collapsed sees the twin shocks of plunging oil prices and global economic pain wrought by the coronavirus pandemic as a chance to expand. “There’s every reason to believe that the amount of problem assets in 2020 will grow significantly,” Bank Trust Chief Executive Officer Mikhail Khabarov said ...

Bloomberg Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s biggest, lost a record $113 billion in the first quarter after the economic shock caused by the coronavirus pandemic triggered a sell-off in global stock markets. The loss comes at an historic moment for the fund, as it may soon need to liquidate assets for the first time to cover Norway’s emergency spending ...

Bloomberg For years, there was an allergy inside Goldman Sachs to owning a private corporate jet. Top bankers had access to rides on planes shared with others, but didn’t want to erode their less-than-stellar image on Main Street with the unnecessary extravagance of having their own. Until David Solomon took over. The bank ordered a pair of Gulfstreams late last ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. (BofA) Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan expects the US economy to bounce back fairly quickly once the coronavirus health crisis is resolved. “There are no structural issues in the economy — it’s a health-care crisis, and I think if we mitigate that health-care crisis, you will see on the other side of this a rebound,” ...

Bloomberg The World Bank Group’s arm for the private sector is working to stave off widespread bankruptcies in developing nations that could be even worse than the coronavirus’s impact in advanced economies, according to its chief. The International Finance Corp. (IFC) has $8 billion to lend in its initial pandemic response for emerging nations, Chief Executive Officer Philippe Le Houerou ...

Bloomberg The Mexican peso led global currency losses after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rejected calls for fiscal stimulus to offset the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. The peso sank as much as 4% amid a global sell-off, its third decline in four days. While economists forecast the economy could contract as much as 7% this year, the president, ...