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Bloomberg Britain has ruled out immediate direct aid to the aviation sector as the coronavirus outbreak wipes out all but a handful of UK flights. In a letter to airlines and airports seen by Bloomberg News, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said that firms must first tap all commercial avenues to raise funds, and that any assistance the state ...

Bloomberg Yum! Brands Inc said it’s suspending its share repurchase program and working to assist some franchisees as the coronavirus outbreak erodes sales. The owner of the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell brands said in a filing that comparable-store sales — a key measure for restaurant companies — will likely decline in a range of mid to high single ...

What’s missing is confidence. Anyone who claims to know how this economic collapse will end is either lying or woefully overconfident. But whatever the prospects, they would be better if consumers, business leaders and investors were more optimistic. The economy’s performance is often a self-fulfilling prophecy. Optimism breeds optimism, and pessimism breeds pessimism. The best we can do as forecasters ...

Just two days after the French government’s lockdown went into effect, the bakery in my village outside Paris started rationing baguettes. The limit of five per family per day is still a lot of bread, but it is disconcerting that anyone is trying to stockpile the most perishable of loafs. I can’t judge them, however. Although I haven’t been panic-buying, ...

This should have been Ocado Plc’s crisis. The online-only grocer should have been capitalising on shoppers avoiding crowded stores. Instead, last week it temporarily closed its website, potentially upsetting its customers. Still, investors clearly believe that it will emerge as one of the winners from the rush to buy toilet paper and tinned soup. Ocado’s shares were up for the ...

In a battle reminiscent of the initially unsuccessful efforts to pass legislation to address the Great Recession in 2008, Republicans and Democrats have thus far failed to advance a $2 trillion relief bill for the coronavirus recession. The only way forward may be to let the Federal Reserve resolve this dispute. The sticking point in negotiations is a provision giving ...

Covid-19 is make or break for the euro. The only way the European Central Bank (ECB) can convince markets that it will do whatever it takes to save the single currency in the current crisis is to abandon the self-imposed political constraints on the assets it can buy under its Quantitative Easing (QE) programme. These encompass the so-called “issue limits,” ...

When something is in short supply, getting it can depend on who you know. That’s true of the coronavirus test, with an added twist. A striking number of rich and famous people, from basketball star Kevin Durant to Senator Rand Paul, have tested positive for Covid-19 without showing symptoms of the disease, let alone being hospitalised. That’s led to charges ...

In a matter of weeks, the world’s fourth-most populous nation went from reporting zero coronavirus cases to having the highest death toll in Southeast Asia. Now its currency is tumbling, growth forecasts are buckling, the capital is under a state of emergency, and an archipelago of 18,000 islands has effectively sealed its borders. With a global recession in the cards, ...

Bloomberg The global economy is taking a battering not seen in decades, the outcome of severe restrictions on businesses and households by governments desperately trying to contain a pandemic that’s killed almost 17,400 people worldwide. The first major numbers outlining the damage tell a story of companies seeing demand plunge at a record pace, activity shrinking and confidence dropping. Government ...