A nationwide business shutdown and surge in U.S. government spending will nearly quadruple the federal deficit to a record $3.7 trillion this fiscal year as the country combats the coronavirus pandemic, congressional forecasters said on Friday.
The senators are asking the Small Business Administration to investigate a report that banks prioritized small business aid loan applications from wealthier clients.
With the U.S. coronavirus death toll topping 51,000 and nearly one in six workers out of a job, Georgia, Oklahoma and several other states took tentative steps at reopening businesses on Friday, despite disapproval from President Donald Trump and medical experts.
The U.S. federal government is looking at "a whole bunch of alternatives" to support oil and other energy companies, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday as the industry struggles with plummeting prices and demand as the coronavirus crushes economic activity.
The powerful United Auto Workers union on Friday criticized Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman's call to re-open casinos despite the continued risk of coronavirus, the latest labor organization to weigh in on her remarks.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Friday said he has notified Congress that the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement will take effect on July 1, a month later than initially proposed.
German automaker Volkswagen will extend until at least May 18 a suspension on operations at its Puebla production plant in Mexico due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the company said in a statement on Friday.
While the coronavirus pandemic has frozen global travel and hit the travel industry hard, data from home-sharing startup Airbnb Inc shows the number of domestic bookings in China for the first half of April were up more than 200% compared with the same period in March.
Oil prices jumped again on Friday, gaining more ground as producers like Kuwait said they would move to cut output and as the United States approved another package to cope with the economic disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
Several brokerages, including discount giant TD Ameritrade Corp are restricting customers from buying new positions in certain crude oil contracts after an unprecedented sell-off that sent prices below negative-$40 on Monday.
As the coronavirus crisis gripped the U.S. economy and Congress approved hundreds of billions of dollars in emergency small business loans, Utah builder Clark Ivory knew what to tell his local colleagues.
Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd owes A$6.9 billion ($4.39 billion) to more than 10,000 creditors based on an initial review and will seek a three-month payment waiver from aircraft lessors, its administrators said.
Nestle reported a 4.3% rise in organic sales growth for the first quarter, the food giant said on Friday, as consumers filled cupboards with Purina pet food and Poland Spring water to prepare for lockdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Swatch Group's sales at its own stores in China are up by almost a quarter during April, the watchmaker's Chief Executive Nick Hayek told Blick newspaper, but the global situation following the coronavirus outbreak remains tough.
Bondholders in particularly hard-hit sectors like energy, travel and leisure have another issue to watch for as companies struggle to survive the economic shutdown - getting demoted by new debt issues.