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Stock market rally fades as investors await US Fed forecasts – business live


Rolling coverage of the latest financial news, as investors await the Fed’s first economic forecasts since the pandemic took hold

9.23am BST

Our #EconomicOutlook focuses on two equally likely scenarios:

1⃣ The virus recedes and is brought under control
2⃣ A second outbreak hits before the end of 2020, triggering a return to lockdowns

Discover our GDP projections by country ➡️ https://t.co/HLrGXh0cRN #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/FNJtrMk2E1

9.21am BST

(Just a quick note to say that if anyone was patiently waiting for our post on German unemployment or Eurozone PMI data as outlined in the agenda this morning, it actually isn’t due today but was out last week. Apologies. The agenda has since been updated)

9.14am BST

Britain’s economy is likely to suffer the worst damage from the Covid-19 crisis of any country in the developed world, according to a report by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Phillip Inman writes.

A slump in the UK’s national income of 11.5% during 2020 will outstrip the falls suffered by France, Italy, Spain and Germany, the Paris-based thinktank said.

Related: UK economy likely to suffer worst Covid-19 damage, says OECD

9.10am BST

You can watch the live OECD press conference here:

WATCH NOW | The global economy faces a tightrope walk to #recovery: Our Secretary-General @A_Gurria & Chief Economist @LauBooneEco present the latest OECD #EconomicOutlook ➡️ https://t.co/8yKFkPn8XD https://t.co/UK5jXQMEf4

9.09am BST

OECD forecasts are out and it’s not a pretty picture.

UK GDP is expected to be -11.5% and as low as -14% if there’s a second wave of the outbreak.

OECD forecasts 6% slump in global economy, and 7.6% slup in event of second wave.

Bigger decline than World Bank’s -5.2% projection yesterday

8.47am BST

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has criticised the British bank HSBC for supporting China’s move to end Hong Kong’s autonomy, calling it a “corporate kowtow”.

Pompeo said the US was ready to assist Britain with whatever it needed after Beijing reportedly threatened to punish HSBC and break its commitments to build nuclear power plants in the country if the UK did not allow the Chinese technology firm Huawei to build its 5G network.

The CCP’s browbeating of HSBC, in particular, should serve as a cautionary tale. Just last week, the bank’s Asia-Pacific CEO, Peter Wong, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, signed a petition supporting Beijing’s disastrous decision to destroy Hong Kong’s autonomy and to break commitments made in an U.N.-registered treaty.

That show of fealty seems to have earned HSBC little respect in Beijing, which continues to use the bank’s business in China as political leverage against London.

Related: Mike Pompeo criticises HSBC for ‘corporate kowtow’ to China

8.21am BST

Let’s catch up with some of the Chinese inflation data released overnight which has also weighed on Asian stocks.

Both the consumer price index and producer price index figures pointed to a drop in demand last month.

China was ground-zero for the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis, but it also appears to be leading the global recovery. Auto sales data looks to be strengthening, and with some factory levels almost back to pre-pandemic levels there is a real hope that the worst is in the rear-view mirror.

Its role at the heart of the global economy has meant that Chinese inflation has historically acted as an indicator for other countries. It remains to be seen whether that’s still the case in this new environment, where local effects will play a more prominent role in the basket of goods.

8.07am BST

The owner of dozens of magazines including The Week, Minecraft World and Viz has put a quarter of its UK staff into a redundancy consultation process as the coronavirus crisis hammers the publishing industry, the Guardian’s Mark Sweney writes.

Dennis Publishing, the company founded by the late media entrepreneur Felix Dennis, has begun a consultation process with 122 of its approximately 480 UK staff. The company is understood to be seeking to cut just over half of those staff involved in the consultation.

The impact of Covid-19 has been significant for the publishing sector.As a result, this week we will begin a redundancy consultation process here in the UK.

We are fully committed to supporting employees in impacted groups throughout this period and ensuring that this process is fair and transparent.

Related: A quarter of Dennis Publishing UK staff facing redundancy

8.03am BST

European stock markets are open for trading.

While we’re nowhere near some of the gains we’ve seen in recent weeks, all major indices are in positive territory:

7.58am BST

Good morning and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, eurozone and business.

Market headlines were dominated last night by news that the Nasdaq hit 10,000 for the first time and that US stocks had actually logged gains for 2020 overall.

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