Ordinary people are piling into the stock market, snapping up shares of well-known companies like Tesla and Apple with a few taps on their phones. The influence of these app-wielding investors on the $30-trillion US stock market is still being debated, but in the meantime they are proving to be very lucrative for professional traders.
European airlines of all sizes have gotten at least some help from their governments. But flag carriers like Lufthansa are in discussions to receive aid that’s on another level.
The UK government has tried to cushion the economy from a deep recession, with extra assistance for companies and the unemployed. But a look just below the surface shows that the pain from the coronavirus disruption is severe and widespread.
As a devastated European airline industry looks to ramp up flights next month, low-cost carrier Wizz Air is soaring higher than the rest.
As the coronavirus pandemic batters the global economy, some government officials are getting creative. One idea from Britain is to start a sovereign wealth fund.
Amazon has had its share of missteps during the Covid-19 crisis. Employees have warned that safety protocols at its warehouses were inadequate, and its ordinarily ultra-efficient logistics and delivery operations have struggled to keep up with a wave of demand. But the e-commerce juggernaut has rumbled on, and it looks positioned to emerge from the pandemic even stronger.
Nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed by a white police officer, are renewing attention to the ways that African Americans have been failed by everything from policing to job creation and public health. Many black Americans have also been unable to improve their quality of life through stock market investing—an important wealth generator.
The coronavirus pandemic has ripped a hole in America’s retailers, but the country’s budget chains and mega-stores have fared much better.
US and German unemployment rates appear to be on different planets. Below the surface, however, economic data show the two countries are experiencing similar pain.
Politicians from London to Washington agree: small businesses need billions of dollars of government support if they’re going to survive the coronavirus pandemic. But the need for transparency is a much less settled matter. Britain refuses to name recipients, and how much they’re getting, while a fight over disclosure is under way across the Atlantic.
Americans are steeling themselves for the biggest economic hit since the Great Depression. But even as unemployment skyrockets, overdue consumer debt is, for the moment at least, in decline.
The US is losing bank branches fast.
The world’s biggest economy is projected to crater this quarter, in what is likely to be the largest contraction since at least the Great Depression. US stocks, meanwhile, have soared. They’ve recouped trillions of dollars of market value in recent weeks, erasing a swoon in March as commerce was forced to shut down around the world.
The pandemic is renewing pressure on Italy’s banking sector, adding to the broader global health and economic crisis it faces. A German court ruling further amplified the strain.
Digital payments were catching on even before the coronavirus pandemic. Now these transactions are getting turbocharged by the crisis, and the disruption could lead to lasting changes in how people spend.
There’s not a lot of demand for luxury leather bags during a pandemic.
Protecting an economy from a pandemic isn’t cheap.
We’re all in this together. That’s what makes the coronavirus pandemic so unusual.
Many billions of dollars in government aid have gone out the door to shore up business of all sizes, and more is soon to follow. It’s time to see where that money has ended up.
Banks are about to get walloped by the coronavirus pandemic.
The world’s biggest banks have been walloped by the coronavirus pandemic, as business closures and unemployment threaten to cause a wave of credit losses. But the risks are more manageable for American banking giants, according to credit derivatives markets, than for their European counterparts.
America’s banking giants are fortifying themselves for a potential tsunami of bad loans.
The British government is dishing out a lot of money to support its economy during the coronavirus pandemic. To be able to spend such extraordinary amounts so quickly, the UK will start getting money directly from the Bank of England.
There’s never a good time for a wave of corporate defaults. As the global economy is battered by the new coronavirus pandemic, questions are growing about whether a vast pile of risky debt can be allowed to implode.
