Investing

So much for this week’s rally: U.S. stocks erase gain on profit warnings

Anne

U.S. stocks dropped as investors began May pondering profit warnings tied to the coronavirus and a ratcheting up of tension with China. The dollar rose as a risk-off mood prevailed.

The S&P 500 Index fell almost 3 per cent, leaving it a tad lower for the week, after sobering comments from Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. about the pandemic’s impact. Exxon Mobil Corp. slumped after posting its first quarterly loss in at least 32 years. The dollar posted its first increase since last week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 617.09 points, or 2.53 per cent, to 23,728.63, the S&P 500 lost 81.13 points, or 2.79 per cent, to 2,831.3 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 284.60 points, or 3.2 per cent, to 8,604.95. The TSX was down 160 point at 14,620.

Equities also retreated in the U.K., one of the few open markets in Europe as other countries celebrated May

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News

Singapore prepares to ease some coronavirus curbs By Reuters

Anne
© Reuters. People leave a tent used as a thermal scanning station, while buying groceries, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Singapore

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore will start easing some curbs put in place to contain the spread of the coronavirus over the next few weeks, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said on Saturday.

Selected activities such as home-based businesses, laundry services and barbers will be allowed to operate from May 12. Some students will be allowed to go back to schools in small groups from May 19.

Some work premises will be allowed to gradually reopen, taking into account their importance to the economy and supply chains and their ability to minimise risks of transmission.

The city-state’s 5.7 million people has among the highest number of infections in Asia, mainly due to outbreaks in cramped migrant workers dormitories. It has managed to curb the spread of

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Finance

ExxonMobil’s CEO is banking on a return to normal—but most others in the energy business aren’t so sure

Anne

On Friday, as ExxonMobil announced its first loss in more than three decades, CEO Darren Woods expressed a determined confidence that the global energy sector would soon see a return to the natural order of things.

“I know there are a lot of different views of what the future holds, but I want to be clear about how we see it,” he said. “The long-term fundamentals that drive our business have not changed.”

His certainly rests on an estimated boom in the global population over the next twenty years, and with it, the arrival of billions into the middle class, where a larger appetite for energy will reflect their changed lifestyles. Economies, Woods said, would once again grow.

“Of course, there are likely to be some bumps in the road in the short term,” he said.

For the world’s energy companies, those bumps already look like they will be historically … Read More