Market Reports

• Australian Market Report: The local share market pulled back from an early strong rise to end the session in the red, despite a surge in oil prices on hopes of an end to the damaging price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia. The ASX 200 index rose nearly 2 per cent in early trade, with oil stocks leading the gains..... [more]

• U.S. Market Report: Wall Street Week Ahead: Investors look to coronavirus data to support stabilizing markets. Investors are parsing a broad range of signals, from infection counts to more traditional indicators, for clues on the trajectory markets may take in coming weeks as the pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus continues to spread..... [more]

• North/South Americas Market Report: North and South American markets finished sharply lower on Friday with shares in Brazil leading the region. The Bovespa is down 2.01% while Mexico's IPC is off 1.53% and U.S.'s S&P 500 is lower by 1.51%..... [more]

• European Market Report: European markets finished broadly lower on Friday with shares in France leading the region. The CAC 40 is down 1.57% while London's FTSE 100 is off 1.18% and Germany's DAX is lower by 0.47%..... [more]

• Asian Market Report: Asian markets finished mixed to lower as of the most recent closing prices. Shares in China fell as the Shanghai Composite dropped 0.60%. The Hang Seng lost 0.44% while the Nikkei 225 in Japan closed unchanged..... [more]

Australian Business News

• 18 Share Tips – 06 April 2020.... [more]

• Businesses eagerly wait for JobKeeper payments as coronavirus fallout begins to hit incomes.... [more]

• Coronavirus is going to change the way we claim at tax time. Here's what you need to know.... [more]

• The temporary sales fillip created in the wake of Canberra's January hailstorm proved a saving grace for the ACT as elsewhere the crushing effects of the coronavirus delivered an 18 per cent national downturn in new car sales for March..... [more]

• Corporate directors have splashed out more than $300 million to buy up shares in major listed companies during the coronavirus crisis, lifting their stakes despite threats of a major global slowdown. Fortescue chairman Andrew Forrest bought $242.8 million of the miner's shares over a week from February 20, which coincidentally was the day the benchmark ASX/200 index peaked at 7197.2 points. The mining magnate bought a further $35.16 million of FMG shares in March..... [more]

• Many cash-strapped households looking for immediate ways to alleviate financial pressure have rushed to review their home loans. Despite the fact mortgage borrowing has never been cheaper – some interest rate deals are in the low 2 per cent range – tens of thousands of borrowers have already paused or dropped the amount they need to repay as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic..... [more]

• Peppermint Innovation progresses towards launch of financial services business bizmopay. The bizmoPay service will be focused on the established bizmoto platform services, spanning payments, delivery and logistics, e-commerce and remittance..... [more]

• EcoGraf implements actions to preserve shareholder funds amid COVID-19 pandemic.... [more]

• Titanium Sands extends Mannar Island scoping study timeline due to COVID-19 restrictions. Work on the scoping study is well advanced and can be completed quickly after receiving the upgraded resource estimate..... [more]

• Santos has defended shareholders' criticism of its controversial coal seam gas proposal for the NSW town of Narrabri during its annual general meeting. Investors on Friday expressed environmental and risk concerns about the project, which if approved, would allow Santos to drill 850 gas wells and provide energy for up to half of NSW..... [more]

• Salt Lake Potash completes earthworks for Lake Way Sulphate of Potash Project process plant.... [more]

• Australian media companies have urged brands and advertising agencies to stop blocking digital advertisements that appear around COVID-19 news articles as the industry faces its biggest downturn in decades. Industry association IAB Australia, which represents digital publishers including News Corporation and Nine Entertainment Co, last week said changes to stop ads from appearing around around topics such as "crisis", "COVID-19" and "coronavirus" could result in big advertisers ending up on less reputable websites..... [more]

• Analysis - Andrew Robertson: Half a million reasons to think long and hard before withdrawing your superannuation during the coronavirus downturn. There's an old saying that you shouldn't make short-term decisions with long-term consequences..... [more]

• Opinion - Jon Faine: The ATO just got a gift.... [more]

• Opinion - Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Lightning fast, wartime response from policymakers may have saved us from a global depression.... [more]

• Analysis - Sven Gallasch: Look who's talking: Australia's telcos, banks and supermarkets granted exemption to cartel laws. "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion," wrote Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (published in 1776), "but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.".... [more]

World Business News

• OPEC and Russia have postponed a Monday meeting to discuss oil output cuts until Thursday, OPEC sources say, as a dispute between Moscow and Saudi Arabia over who is to blame for plunging crude prices has intensified..... [more]

• U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would impose tariffs on crude imports if he has to “protect” U.S. energy workers from the oil price crash that has been exacerbated by a war between Russia and Saudi Arabia over market share..... [more]

• A decade of jobs growth in the US came to an abrupt halt in March as employers shed 701,000 jobs amid the coronavirus outbreak. The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% in the biggest one-month jump since 1975, according to new data from the US Department of Labor..... [more]

• U.S. banks are expected to defend their dividend payments when they submit their annual capital plans to the Federal Reserve on Monday for the upcoming stress tests, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the situation..... [more]

• 3M hits back at Trump, says ceasing exports of N95 masks will have ‘opposite’ effect, humanitarian consequences.... [more]

• When it comes to ETFs, there are three big players, and then there’s everyone else, but in the first quarter, there was one asset manager to rule them all. Data out Friday from FactSet showed that Vanguard pulled in $48.5 billion in the first three months of the year, more than four times its nearest competitor, BlackRock..... [more]

• Coronavirus: UK among economies risking record slump.... [more]

• The Bank of England will not resort to irreversibly printing money in order to fund a surge in government spending as it tries to shield Britain’s economy from the coronavirus crisis, its governor Andrew Bailey said on Sunday..... [more]

• London’s Ritz Sold to Wife of Former Qatari Emir, Mail Reports.... [more]

• Europe needs debt mutualisation and a common Marshall plan to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Sunday. The Marshall Plan was an aid programme initiated by the United States in 1948 to help countries in Western Europe recover after World War Two..... [more]

• HSBC (HSBA.L) shareholders in Hong Kong are mulling calling for an extraordinary meeting with management and taking possible legal action against the bank’s scrapping of dividend payments..... [more]

• Analysis - Jonty Bloom: Will coronavirus reverse globalisation? It may seem a rather strange concept, since any economic historian will tell you that people have been trading across vast distances for centuries, if not millennia..... [more]