(Bloomberg) -- Stage Stores Inc., the owner of rural department and discount stores including Goody’s, Peebles and Gordmans, filed for bankruptcy protection, adding to the toll of traditional retailers felled by too much debt and the economic shocks of the coronavirus.The retailer will simultaneously seek buyers for parts or all of its business while it also begins to wind down operations, Stage Stores said in a statement late Sunday. It will start reopening stores that have been closed by the pandemic, with about 557 outlets scheduled to open May 15 to conduct liquidation sales.The company’s Chapter 11 filing in its home city of Houston listed assets and liabilities of between $500 million and $1 billion each.While the retailer had been seeking to bolster its financial position in recent months, “the increasingly challenging market environment was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which required us to temporarily close all of our stores and...
(Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks climbed along with U.S. and European equity futures and the yen retreated after a number of countries reported the fewest deaths from the coronavirus since March. Crude oil fell.Futures on the S&P 500 rose after the index gained on Friday even in the wake of a historic surge in American unemployment. One of the largest advances in the Asia-Pacific region came in Japan amid talk of a potential further supplementary budget to address the coronavirus impact. Hong Kong also outperformed, with Sydney, Seoul and Shanghai also seeing gains though volumes were down across the board. France, Italy and the U.K. all reported the fewest deaths since March, though South Korea warned of the risk of a second wave of infections. Treasuries ticked lower.As governments around the world give more details on how economies will gradually restart, equities have continued to grind higher from their March lows. That...
(Bloomberg) -- The Covid-19 pandemic likely barely dented Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s growth, thanks to its dominance of online spheres from gaming to social media. Now that China’s industries are emerging from the worst of the outbreak, the bigger long-term threat may be the growing posse of challengers to its internet leadership.The WeChat operator is expected to unveil an 18% revenue rise when it reports earnings Wednesday, offering investors the earliest glimpse into how China Internet Inc. fared during a coronavirus-stricken first quarter. That’s down a tad from 20%-plus in prior quarters but still decent, thanks to its burgeoning cloud and finance services and a billion-plus entertainment-starved players confined to home. It’s why Tencent’s value has surged more than $39 billion since Covid-19 first broke out, defying a global market rout and a record Chinese economic contraction. It climbed about 2% Monday to its highest in almost two years.But once the dust...
May.10 -- Matthew Prince, co-founder and chief executive officer of San Francisco-based software maker Cloudflare Inc., which provides services such as firewalls, network routing and traffic management that allow cloud-based sites to operate more effectively, discusses how the coronavirus outbreak is affecting demand for its products and services. He also talks about the deal with a unit of China's JD.com with Selina Wang and Rishaad Salamat on "Bloomberg Markets: China Open."...
(Bloomberg) -- Oil dropped after posting its first back-to-back weekly gain since February as investors weighed nascent signs of a recovery in demand against a huge global glut and the risk of a resurgence in virus cases.Futures fell 2.2% in New York after rising 25% last week. While death rates have been easing in many countries, there’s concern the global economy may be vulnerable to a second wave of infections. China put a city near North Korea in lockdown over the weekend, while the White House has been hit with a case even as President Donald Trump encourages Americans to return to work.However, the market is showing some signs it’s starting to rebalance. China’s oil stockpiles have shrunk in recent weeks after swelling to a record, while hedge funds increased their bullish bets on West Texas Intermediate crude. U.S. output cuts are accelerating with active drill rigs falling to a level...
(Bloomberg) -- The deadly coronavirus outbreak has been met with a wide-ranging response from China’s policy makers seeking to cushion the economy, support financial markets and bolster investor confidence. Here’s a look at some of the steps taken, along with market reaction.Sunday, May 10STRONGER POLICIES: The People’s Bank of China said the country faces unprecedented economic challenges from the coronavirus pandemic and it will resort to “more powerful” policies to counter the hit to growth. The phrase “will avoid excess liquidity flooding the economy” was missing from the policy outlook section of its quarterly monetary policy implementation report. It was in the previous report for the fourth quarter of 2019.Friday, April 24TMLF CUT: The PBOC injected 56.1 billion yuan ($7.9 billion) into the banking system via the targeted medium-term facility, just as 267.4 billion yuan of the debt comes due. The one-year funding was offered at an interest rate of 2.95%,...
