Here’s what you need to know:
- European markets stumble as infections rise in Germany and the U.S.
- After criticism, India may allow some international flights.
- Nasdaq hits record as stocks climb again.
- ‘The future looks bleak’: The pandemic ravages medical tourism.
- Disney will close its language schools in China, citing changing habits caused by the pandemic.
European markets stumble as infections rise in Germany and the U.S.
Major European markets were trading nearly 2 percent lower on Wednesday amid further signs that the coronavirus outbreak is proving difficult to stop. Futures markets suggested that Wall Street would open about 1 percent lower.
The drop followed a mixed day of trading in Asia, but sentiment deteriorated as investors digested the reports. Prices for U.S. Treasury bonds and for gold futures, both proxies for investor nervousness, were higher. Oil futures fell as well.
German officials this week reimposed local lockdowns after an outbreak at a slaughterhouse infected more than 1,500 people. In the United States, a surge in new cases in southern states like Florida, Texas and Arizona have prompted new warnings about the dangers of the pandemic.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, told American lawmakers on Tuesday that he was seeing a “disturbing surge” in some places. He urged the government to stock up on masks and other supplies.
Underscoring nervousness over the effectiveness of the American response, The New York Times reported that European Union countries are prepared to block Americans from entering as they reopen their borders because the United States has failed to control the outbreak.
After criticism, India may allow some international flights.
India is coming under increased pressure to open its airspace to international carriers after the United States and some European nations accused it of discriminatory practices under the garb of “repatriations” flights.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said on Monday that the Indian charter flights — organized by the government to bring Indian nationals home amid global travel restrictions — go beyond “true repatriations.” It accused India’s national carrier, Air India, of selling tickets in the open market, even while New Delhi officials keep U.S. airlines from flying to India. Future chartered flights, U.S. officials said, would require Washington’s approval.
The Indian government suspended international air travel operations on March 22 after imposing a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus. On many occasions, it failed to greenlight chartered flights operated by U.S. carriers.
India’s ministry of civil aviation said in a tweet on Tuesday that it was considering easing those restrictions to allow flights from U.S., French, British and German carriers.
U.S. transportation officials have taken tougher stances on flight restrictions imposed by other countries like China. But India’s limits were also criticized by Indian passengers, with the local news media running articles quoting some who spent thousands of dollars on a handful of tickets.
Nasdaq hits record as stocks climb again.
Stocks on Wall Street rose on Tuesday along with global markets, as investors zeroed in on signs of economic recovery and the prospect for another round of stimulus spending by the government.
The S&P 500 rose less than half a percent. As they have done for several days recently, technology stocks fared even better than the broader market, with the Nasdaq composite returning to a record.
The gains came after a turbulent night for financial markets around the world, after one of President Trump’s advisers seemed to suggest that a trade deal between the United States and China had been scrapped. But after Mr. Trump took to Twitter, and his surrogates appeared on television to clarify the statement, stocks quickly recovered.
Lifting sentiment were initial surveys of corporate purchasing managers that echoed other signals of a rebound underway in the United States, Britain and Europe. The IHS Markit composite purchasing managers index for the United States rose to 46.8 in June, up from 37 in May. A reading under 50 still signals economic contraction.
“The second quarter started with an alarming rate of collapse but output and jobs are now falling at far more modest rates in both the manufacturing and service sectors,” Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit, said in a statement accompanying the data. “The improvement will fuel hopes that the economy can return to growth in the third quarter.”
‘The future looks bleak’: The pandemic ravages medical tourism.
Over the past several years, hospitals began to play innkeeper to open the door to more elective surgery, which is the lifeblood of their revenue.
They developed hotels near their operating rooms where patients, who often came from overseas for specialized treatments, could recover comfortably. Expanding into the hospitality business also allowed health care providers to avoid the high costs of being hosts themselves.
But as with so much else, the coronavirus pandemic has devastated medical tourism. To allow doctors to focus on emergencies, hospitals have canceled hip replacements and tummy tucks, while flight bans have grounded many foreign visitors.
“Unfortunately, the future looks bleak,” said Trey Hulsey, a co-founder of Hayakoum, a three-year-old service that handles travel arrangements for patients from the Middle East bound for hospitals in Boston, Houston and Philadelphia. “It’s just been one blow after another.”
Yet hospitals, whose costs have mounted as the pandemic dragged on, may have little choice but to revive the sector, according to some developers, who are forging ahead despite the uncertainty.
“We want to be focused on the entire patient experience,” said Ana Lopez-Blázquez, an executive vice president at Baptist Health South Florida, which owns the Miami hospital.
Disney will close its language schools in China, citing changing habits caused by the pandemic.
The Walt Disney Company has decided to close Disney English, a 12-year-old chain of 25 language schools in China, ending a once-promising business that, at times, prompted questions about education as brand building.
The learning centers, in six cities and using Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and the Little Mermaid in their curriculum, have been closed since late January, when the Chinese government began to take aggressive efforts to contain the coronavirus. Traditional schools have been allowed to slowly reopen, but some supplemental education centers, including Disney English, have remained closed.
Mahesh Samat, Disney’s executive vice president of consumer products commercialization in the Asia-Pacific region, told parents in a letter on Monday that Disney English had made the “difficult decision” not to reopen. The chain was founded in 2008, when China’s fast-growing middle class had created increased demand for English-language learning. Disney developed the curriculum in partnership with Columbia University.
He added that Disney was “taking care of each and every” teacher affected by the decision but did not specify how. Advance-paid tuition will be refunded. The learning centers, aimed at children ages 2 to 12, charged roughly $2,000 annually for about 100 hours of instruction.
Pandemic shutdowns put the Trump Organization under financial strain.
Shortly after the coronavirus pandemic largely shut down the country’s hotels and golf courses, the Trump Organization asked its longtime lender, Deutsche Bank, for a break on its monthly loan payments. President Trump’s company owed the German bank a total of more than $300 million, most of which was on loans related to the Trump National Doral golf resort in Florida and the Trump International Hotel in Washington.
Deutsche Bank executives recently made an offer to the Trump Organization: The company could skip a number of payments on some of its loans, but the loans would eventually need to be repaid in full, according to people familiar with the matter. The offer was similar to what Deutsche Bank was proposing to other struggling clients.
The Trump Organization rejected the proposal, which officials concluded was not worth taking, the people said.
Deutsche Bank officials — which were wary of doing a financial favor for a president whose administration oversees the bank — were surprised that the Trump Organization did not accept the offered relief, however modest it might have been.
This is not the first time that the Trump Organization has sought to rework its debts to Deutsche Bank. In 2008, during the global financial crisis, the Trump company was due to repay a loan that had financed the construction of the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago. After Deutsche Bank refused to extend the loan’s due date, the Trump Organization sued the bank, blaming Deutsche Bank for causing the financial crisis and arguing that it constituted a contract-voiding act of God.
That lawsuit was eventually settled, but Deutsche Bank stopped working with Mr. Trump for a few years. The relationship was restarted in 2012 when the bank agreed to make a number of loans to the Trump company, including $125 million to finance the Doral golf resort.
Catch up: Here’s what else is happening.
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Spirit Aerosystems, a key Boeing supplier, said in a securities filing that Boeing had slashed an order for fuselage parts because of the effect the pandemic has had on global aviation. Boeing now wants only 72 shipsets, down from 125. (The aerospace giant had already cut its order from 216 earlier this year.)
Reporting was contributed by Mohammed Hadi, C.J. Hughes, Carlos Tejada, Sameer Yasir, Brooks Barnes, David Enrich and Niraj Chokshi.
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June 24, 2020 at 04:52PM
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Live Stock Market Updates During the Coronavirus Outbreak - The New York Times
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