Deep breaths, people. It’s Jobs Report Friday – NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch and Marketplace
Still, as weekly unemployment claims show a slowing pace, stocks found enough good news to rally on Thursday, with the Nasdaq up enough to erase all of its 2020 losses. The Dow and S&P500 are still down roughly 10% on the year – WSJ
Not exactly stop-the-presses stuff at this point in the relationship, but negotiators from the U.S. and China have officially been in touch and agreed to keep talking as they work to implement the bilateral trade deal signed in January. Actually, the bigger news may be that the two countries apparently hadn’t spoken at all since then – Bloomberg and NYTimes and MarketWatch
High-end retailer Neiman Marcus, a “symbol of luxury,” is the latest company (and “first major department store group”) to file for bankruptcy during the coronavirus pandemic. The news, coming just a year after it opened a 188,000 square foot outpost in NY’s Hudson Yards, marks a “stunning fall that follows the collapse of Barneys New York late last year and comes as shadows gather over chains like Lord & Taylor and J.C. Penney” – NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
Law360 helps us understand the “liquidity with limits” approach the Fed is taking with its Main Street Lending Program—a sort of “Plan B for companies that were not eligible for the PPP and have difficulty raising funding through traditional capital markets right now” – Law360
Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs venture is scrapping plans to create a “sensor-laden, data driven city of tomorrow” within Toronto after years of opposition from urban activists and civil libertarians concerned about a tech company amassing so much data and planning power over their city – NYTimes and WSJ
Uber revealed yesterday that quarterly bookings from ride-hailing customers “declined for the first time ever, a sign that the coronavirus is arresting growth of businesses that have only gone in one direction” – Bloomberg
Longtime Hong Kong Exchanges chief Charles Li is stepping down from the top spot when his contract expires in October 2021 – WSJ
The DOJ has secured $49 million settlement in its clawback action related to the Malaysian 1MDB scandal, the largest ever figure in a forfeiture case – Law360
Researchers from Kansas State are out with a new study analyzing the White House’s trade-war bailout that shows the administration “largely overpaid farmers for their losses, with southern cotton farmers receiving the most outsized gains” – Bloomberg
Some helpful graphics for tracking the outlay of PPP lending – NYTimes
A bit of MN-centric inspiration for those of you finally ready to grab a clippers and get to work – TPT
