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(Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Friday.
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COMPANIES
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Informa said trading remained mixed with the Events division hammered by cancellations due to government-imposed lockdowns across the world, while the Subscriptions unit continuing to trade well. "We expect the pace and shape of recovery to be gradual and phased by market. Despite continued near-term unpredictability, our strengthened balance sheet, continuing cost controls and strong liquidity is enabling us to focus on the other side of Covid-19," Chief Executive Stephen Carter said in his annual general meeting statement. The London-based business publisher and exhibitions organiser said its Subscriptions unit - which makes up 35% of revenue - continues to perform "resiliently" but its Events unit - 65% of revenue - is focusing on providing alternative digital services as no physical product has been traded anywhere in the world due to Covid-19. The company has scheduled a minimal physical product for June but is now planning to run a number of major events in China from early July, with China Beauty Expo in Shanghai the first scheduled major Informa event to be held post-Covid-19.
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International Consolidated Airlines' British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair have launched legal action against the UK government's "flawed" 14-day quarantine policy. The airlines announced they have asked for a judicial review to be heard "as soon as possible", claiming the measures introduced this week will have a "devastating effect on British tourism and the wider economy". They said they have seen no evidence of when proposed air bridges between the UK and other countries will be implemented. Instead, they want the government to re-adopt the policy it introduced on March 10, which saw passengers from countries deemed at high risk of coronavirus infection being order to self-isolate on arrival in the UK. The three airlines said in a joint statement: "This would be the most practical and effective solution, and enables civil servants to focus on other, more significant issues arising from the pandemic while bringing the UK in line with much of Europe which is opening its borders mid-June."
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Carnival said Holland America Line has extended its pause on cruise operations and is cancelling further departures from the port of Vancouver in 2020 as well as some Hawaii itineraries for early 2021.
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MARKETS
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Stocks in London rebounded on Friday, looking to end a gloomy week on a high note.
"Stocks are heading higher as the uncertainty around a second wave provides a volatile market environment. With Trump promising to avoid a second lockdown, the coming months could be key for his hopes of re-election," IG Senior Market Analyst Joshua Mahony said.
"Markets appear to have stabilised after yesterday's crash in global equities, with traders attempting to figure out whether this is finally the beginning of the second major selloff. We appear to be shifting from a phase where everyone looks towards the reopening as a cause for optimism, to one where we begin to refocus on Covid case numbers with trepidation."
In the US - following Thursday's drastic sell-off - Wall Street is set to claw back some losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is pointed 2.2% higher, the S&P 500 up 1.8%, and the Nasdaq Composite up 1.5%.
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FTSE 100: up 77.69 points, or 1.3%, at 6,154.39
FTSE 250: up 1.4% at 17,214.35
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.2% at 867.58
GBP: down at USD1.2635 (USD1.2642)
EUR: down at USD1.1319 (USD1.1377)
Gold: down at USD1,732.80 per ounce (USD1,742.15)
Oil (Brent): firm at USD38.84 a barrel (USD38.70)
(changes since previous London equities close)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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The UK economy shrank by a fifth in the month of April, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics. Gross domestic product slumped 20% month-on-month in April, the biggest monthly fall since the series began - far steeper than the falls of 5.8% and 0.2% seen in March and February respectively. In the three months to April, the economy contracted an "unpredecented" 10% on a sequential basis. The latest release captures the direct effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and government measures taken to stem its spread. The ONS noted in a separate release that April's GDP decline was three times greater than the fall experienced during the 2008 to 2009 economic downturn. Throughout the 2008 recession, GDP shrunk by no more than 2.1% in a single quarter.
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The jobs market in the UK is slowly improving, but sectors including hospitality are continuing to be hit by the coronavirus crisis, a new study suggests. The number of jobs on offer increased by 13,000 to 963,000 in the past month, said the Recruitment & Employment Confederation. In the first week of June there were 112,000 job adverts, up by 64% from the last week of May, suggesting more companies are starting to hire again, said the report. Scotland and Wales are leading the recovery, with job postings rising by 3.6% and 2.3% respectively in recent weeks, although they fell in parts of Northern Ireland, South Norfolk and Kent, said the report.
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The UK government is expected to backtrack on its plan to introduce full border checks with the EU from January 1 over fears of the economic impact of coronavirus. Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove is anticipated to make an announcement on Friday over border operations for when Brexit fully comes into effect at the end of the transition period. The UK had committed to introduce import controls on EU goods in the new year, but ministers are now expected to adopt a more flexible approach to prevent the departure compounding the chaos from Covid-19. Gove will have the second joint committee agreed under the Withdrawal Agreement with European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic on Friday. UK sources said that unless both sides agree to another such meeting before the end of July, it will be the last opportunity to request an extension to the transition period.
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The UK and the EU are due to take stock of progress in their thorny trade negotiations at high-level talks on Monday, after several negotiating rounds have delivered little progress to date. Time is ticking towards an end-of-year deadline when EU rules will stop applying to Britain, following its departure from the bloc on January 31. Without a follow-on arrangement, costly trade barriers will spring up overnight, along with other administrative hurdles. Monday's talks - via video conference - will be attended by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, European Council President Charles Michel, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Parliament President David Sassoli. The meeting was confirmed by spokespeople in London and Brussels. Besides assessing the state of negotiations on a new trade and political relationship, the two sides are also due to discuss the option of extending Britain's transition period beyond December 31 - a move that London has already ruled out, however.
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Japanese industrial production slumped even more than first thought in April, according to data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry. Annually, industrial output was down 15% in April and month-on-month, fell 9.8%. This had first been reported as falls of 14% and 9.1% respectively. The index of industrial shipments fell 17% year-on-year, while inventories rose 2.7%.
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North Korea criticised Donald Trump in a stinging denunciation of the US, the second anniversary of a landmark summit in Singapore where the US president shook hands with leader Kim Jong Un. It was the latest in a series of vitriolic statements from Pyongyang aimed at both Washington and Seoul, and came a day after the North implicitly threatened to disrupt November's election if the US did not stay out of inter-Korean affairs. In recent days, Pyongyang has excoriated the South over defectors launching leaflets criticising Kim into the North and announced it was cutting all official communication links with Seoul. Friday's broadside contained some of the harshest criticism Pyongyang has sent Washington's way in recent months, and casts doubt over the future of the two sides' long-stalled nuclear talks process.
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The US has recorded another 941 coronavirus-related fatalities in the last 24 hours, bringing the country's death toll so far to 113,774, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. The world's top economy is the most affected by the pandemic in absolute terms, with both the highest number of deaths and the largest number of infections – 2.0 million at 0030 GMT Friday, a tracker maintained by the Baltimore-based university showed. The US continues to register around 20,000 new cases of coronavirus each day, and is struggling to come down from that plateau as infection rates wax and wane around the country. In some more sparsely populated rural regions, the number of hospitalisations is climbing compared to a month ago. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday there will be no more shutdowns, even as the outbreak flares in some states. "We can't shut down the economy. I think we've learned that if you shut down the economy, you're going to create more damage," Mnuchin said in an interview on CNBC.
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