(Bloomberg Opinion) -- In documents published alongside Carnival Corp.’s $6.25 billion debt and equity offering last week, the beleaguered cruise ship operator showed why it might not keep much of that cash for long.Carnival held $4.7 billion in customer deposits at the end of February for trips that passengers paid for in advance but hadn’t yet taken. Because their cruises have been cancelled amid the coronavirus outbreak, many customers will want their money back. As such, Carnival could soon find itself short of cash again.Carnival’s predicament is shared by hundreds of travel, airline, sports, education and entertainment businesses — all of which depend on advanced payment from customers to fund their operations. People probably don’t realize it, but when they pay for a ticket months in advance they’re effectively extending these companies an interest-free loan. The world’s airlines might have to repay $35 billion in customer cash during the next three months, according...
(Bloomberg) -- South Korean, Philippine and Indonesian stocks are the first in Asia Pacific to enter technical bull markets, rising over 20% from lows reached just weeks ago, as investor sentiment was buoyed by a slowing death toll in some of the world’s coronavirus hotspots.Asia’s regional benchmark climbed 2.5%, the most in about two weeks. New York State fatalities fell for the first time, and Italy had the fewest deaths in more than two weeks. President Donald Trump said he sees signs the U.S. outbreak is beginning to level off. Markets were also optimistic about Saudi Arabia, Russia and other large oil producers moving to negotiate a deal to stem a historic price crash.In South Korea, the Kospi index gained 3.9% to close 23% above its March 19 low. Samsung Electronics Co. was the biggest boost to the measure, rising 3.6% ahead of its preliminary earnings report on Tuesday.“While South Korea...
Belgium's Brussels Airlines, a Lufthansa subsidiary, has extended its suspension of flights until at least May 15, it said on Monday. The Belgian carrier had previously grounded flights until Apr. 19 but said it was extending that by four weeks because of "low to no demand", owing to travel restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus. Airlines have been among the hardest-hit industries as the spread of the COVID-19 respiratory disease trigerred by the new coronavirus has brought travel to a grinding halt in many parts of the world....
Apr.06 -- The pound's positioning relative to other currencies has changed, according to David Bloom, global head of foreign exchange strategy at HSBC. "We used to be much more of a risk-off currency," he said on "Bloomberg Markets: European Open."...
Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) on Sunday publicized a prototype of its ventilators for patients who fall critically ill from novel coronavirus (COVID-19).What Happened "We are trying to make some ventilators out of some car parts so that we can help out the medical industry without taking away from their supply," one of the Tesla engineers, who is a part of the project, said during the demonstration.The engineers didn't specify a timeline for the production of the ventilators. "There's still a lot of work to do, but we're giving it our best effort," one of the employees said.Tesla had to shut down its Fremont and New York factories for regular production due to the shelter in place orders imposed by local authorities.The automaker's chief executive officer Elon Musk later said the New York gigafactory would be reopened to produce ventilators for patients who fall critically ill from infecting the coronavirus and require...
(Bloomberg) -- When Samsung Electronics Co. brass addressed analysts during its last earnings call, much of the talk revolved around finally turning the corner after years in the doldrums. That was in January, before Covid-19 threw the global economy into a tailspin.Now, executives are struggling to assess the damage. In the short term, Samsung’s most profitable business is riding a surge in online activity from the millions confined to home, driving demand for the memory chips that help power datacenters and cloud services. But should the pandemic persist into the second half -- a worst-case scenario -- the tech giant foresees missing its own 2020 revenue projections by a double-digit percentage, according to people familiar with internal discussions.Samsung unveils preliminary earnings Tuesday, becoming one of the first major technology corporations to paint a picture of how the pandemic impacted the global tech industry in 2020’s first three months. As the world’s...
