fortune--2020-03-14--After SXSW cancellation, Austin hotels and restaurants are bracing for a rough road ahead

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The rooms at the Carpenter Hotel, a stylish boutique property not far from Lady Bird Lake and downtown Austin, typically fetch somewhere in the high $400s per night during South by Southwest (SXSW), the annual two-week music festival and economic juggernaut that was scheduled to kick off Monday.
On March 6, following the withdrawal of a number of noteworthy attendees (Apple, Netflix, et al.) and a public petition generating thousands of signatures, the City of Austin canceled the festival owing to health and safety concerns related to COVID-19, leaving venues scrambling, service-industry workers and ride-sharing drivers worrying, and hotels awash in hand sanitizer and empty rooms. I booked one at the Carpenter day-of this week for $150.
“Hours before the announcement they were oversold,” says Liz Subauste, an Austin hospitality veteran who earlier today had been chatting with the Carpenter’s general manager. “By the end of the day, they were at 10% occupancy. Austin is such an event-driven city: South By, ACL [Austin City Limits music festival], Nascar. Winter and summer are slow, so we count on that income.”
Sitting outside Nixta Taqueria with Subauste and writer and hospitality consultant Andrew Knowlton, you wouldn’t know anything is amiss. The Topo Chicos are frosty, the tortillas topped with duck carnitas are warm, and neighbors stop by to chat with one another. It feels like any other day in East Austin, but below the surface, “it’s pretty fair to say people are freaking out,” Knowlton says. “Restaurants do their P&Ls [profit and loss statements] based on South By. It brings millions of dollars into the city.”
Specifically $335.9 million last year, according to SXSW’s annual report. It’s hard to overstate the economic impact of SXSW, which started in 1987 with 700 attendees and has evolved—some locals might say metastasized—into a two-week event of nearly 300,000 attendees that’s as much about—some locals might say in bed with—the tech industry as it is about music. Giants like Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon host concerts, panels, parties, and product launches—and they arrive with wallets open. “So many of the big brands buy out restaurants and host big dinners,” says Elaine Garza, who owns Austin public relations firm Giant Noise. “You have this infusion of cash over 10 days. It gets these [businesses] through and evens out their year.”
Subauste says her friends at a popular downtown barbecue spot had five straight days booked: “They were expecting to make $50,000, and that’s gone.”
Liz Subauste and Andrew Knowlton at Nixta Taqueria in East Austin, March 2020. Adam Erace
It’s a tough position for small-business owners like James Moody, a former pharmaceutical sales rep who says he relocated to Austin 13 years ago during a “midlife crisis, bought an old Mexican restaurant, and turned it into a live-music venue.” Mohawk is one of the city’s premier places to see bands, with live music 365 days of the year. “Normally we will be packed to the gills during South By,” Moody explains. “We’ve been able to pick up other shows that were displaced, so it’s looking like 70% to 80% retention, but I’m gonna have a couple days I don’t know if I will fill completely.”
An entire ecosystem of businesses exist in Austin to support the festival—lighting, security, AV, trucking, catering, tent companies—to say nothing of scores of bartenders, ride-share drivers, massage therapists, hotel housekeepers, freelance photographers, makeup artists, and other hourly, tipped, and self-employed workers on whom the cancellation may have a catastrophic down-ballot effect. I spoke with a bartender at a high-end Austin resort who moonlights as a brand ambassador. “I had events every day next week—Audible, Tito’s vodka—and they all canceled,” she says, asking not to be named. “It’s really frustrating. I understand the safety concern, I do. But also, people’s lives are being impacted. Some of my friends who are artists, they’ve been booked out a year in advance, and they’re not getting paid.”
The identity of the city is also at stake. “It feels like there’s a hole in Austin,” Knowlton says. “It’s like not having Christmas or a major holiday here.”
A view of downtown Austin on 5th Street, in the heart of the entertainment district, on March 9, 2020. Despite being canceled owing to fears about the coronavirus, South by Southwest banners still decorate the streets. Gary Miller—Getty Images
Moody is making the best of it. “When you’re in the venue business, struggle is part of it. We’re used to having our asses kicked,” he says. “There’s this idea of making lemonade all the time. Some locals are saying, ‘Great, no tourists or corporate sponsors, maybe we can go back to a small spring festival and experience SXSW for ourselves again.’ What if there’s some demand for South By 2005? What if we can bring that back?”
Most Austinites I spoke with this week are hopeful fellow residents will fill the tourist void. “I was out for lunch and dinner yesterday, and the restaurants were busy,” Garza says. “[Restaurant staffs] are not dancing, but they’re not all doom and gloom either.” At Comedor, recently named the best new restaurant in the state by Texas Monthly, every table was filled, and it was SRO at the mezcal bottle–lined bar. Tonight, a solid crowd has gathered on the patio at the Carpenter Hotel’s restaurant, Carpenters Hall. “We get a lot of support from locals,” the front desk agent tells me at check-in. To fill their empty space, he continues, they’re offering residents rooms at $120 with a $25 room service credit.
The true impact of the cancellation of SXSW on Austin’s economy won’t be known for a while, nor will the true impact of COVID-19. “This is uncharted territory,” Garza says. “Not just for Austin, but for the world.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—How coronavirus is affecting the global concert industry
—Coronavirus is mutating: Chinese scientists find second strain
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How Europe is adapting to the coronavirus outbreak
—China’s box office was supposed to surpass North America’s this year
—Growing coronavirus threat weighs on Apple
—Nearly half of American travelers are reconsidering their international trips due to coronavirus
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fortune--2020-03-14--From Wuhan to Seattle, the coronavirus pandemic cuts deep into local businesses

‘ Where ’ s the leadership ?
’ A Q & A with WHO special envoy David Nabarro on COVID-19

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This time last year, Greg and Jing Wetzel were—in his words—“killing it.” The couple’s Chinese food truck had successfully transitioned to a stationary location, Seattle’s only restaurant serving the cuisine of Wuhan. Things were going so well that Zheng Café was preparing to open a second location.
Now, amid the outbreak of COVID-19, both spots are closed, bills are piling up, and Greg is debating taking the van to be voluntarily repossessed—but not before he completes Jing’s request to remove anything valuable from their now-shuttered restaurant in case it gets targeted in a hate crime.
“For everything to just drop out like it did, it’s shocking,” says Greg.
When they set out to open a food truck in 2016, Jing argued that nobody wanted food from Wuhan—that the popular sesame dry noodles (often called hot dry noodles) were just street food. But Greg countered that he was American and he ate the dish with its thick, savory sauce and sharp pickled vegetable topping every morning. He won out, and she got some recipes from her mom and aunt. They worked together for a year, creating the filling for the buns, perfecting the texture of the dough. “We ate so many buns; we were so tired. So much work went into it,” Greg recalls of the more optimistic time. “To see it disappear in a matter of weeks, to be sitting where we are, it’s mind-blowing.”
Greg and Jing Wetzel in Wuhan, China, in 2016. Greg and Jing Wetzel
The restaurant business is notoriously shaky in the best of times, and cooking food that hails from the epicenter of a pandemic crushed Zheng Café’s business. And when the Wetzels tried to rise again, the pandemic followed them to Seattle.
It’s not the first time Greg has hit rock bottom. In 2009, just after his divorce, he was there. But looking for an escape, he followed a friend to teach English in China. He sold everything he owned and took a one-year contract that landed him in Wuhan, where he fell in love with his job, the city where people were so friendly and treated him so well, and—eventually—with Jing. “This is all happening now,” he said of the coronavirus coming out of Wuhan, “but sometimes I wish I was still there.”
He stayed in Wuhan for four years, marrying Jing, who had a son from her previous marriage. The food was amazing: “A little bit of everything—spicy, sweet, savory, all kinds of flavors,” he says. And the people were so friendly, he recalls. But in 2014, the pair decided to move back to the U.S. to help their son’s college chances. Greg looked around for a new career. His graphic design degree wasn’t much help, but he’d always enjoyed cooking—his mom is a private chef, his grandma was a chef as well—so he went to cooking school.
When they opened, those sesame dry noodles Jing doubted people would like became their top seller. Their search for a commissary kitchen landed them a café space in South Lake Union, the heart of the Amazon lunch crowds. In 2017 they went stationary, and after a slow start, a Chinese food blogger’s post on social media sites WeChat and Weibo sent lines out the door. They hired employees for the first time, then started plans for expansion to help make the business profitable. The second location didn’t work: They were stretched too thin and ended up closing it after three months to preserve the quality of their primary location. But they were unable to get rid of the location and have years of paying rent on the space still under contract.
Back to just Jing and Greg at the original location, they aimed to start over in December, focusing on their core business: the one spot, with their loyal customers who came from Wuhan, or went to university there, and now worked for Amazon and nearby tech companies. Greg and Jing worked four days a week, 13 hours a day, then spent the rest of their time with their son or doing prep for the following week.
Then COVID-19 hit. Jing’s parents were the first to tell the couple: They were under quarantine. Her uncle, already battling lung cancer, tested positive, then her aunt while caring for him. He went to the ICU, and after she went in for treatment, the government put chains on her apartment. She had to move into a hotel room, and it was hard. No banks were open—there was no way to get money. Greg and Jing worried constantly—about her parents, about the 250 students in the class Greg had followed through three years of school. Jing was crying constantly. Their customers from Wuhan would cry into the beef noodle soup—young men, alone, and far from their parents in quarantine, coming in for a taste of home. The Wetzels took some time off: “It was hard to cook, hard to put a smile on and face people every day,” Greg says. The restaurant started to get negative feedback.
“Are you from Wuhan?” a Chinese tourist asked. When Jing said yes, the customer walked out. Chinese and Asian restaurants around the country saw business go down. When Greg decided to try to collect masks and hand sanitizer to send to Wuhan and created a donation box, the restaurant got a one-star review online, telling the couple they ran a business and should purchase it themselves. “People thought we had ulterior motives,” he says. “We didn’t get any donations.” They shut the business down.
Wuhan sesame noodles with ground pork: a traditional dish made with homemade sesame paste, seasoned ground beef, pickled long beans and Japanese radish, sweet peanuts, green onions, and sesame seeds. Greg and Jing Wetzel
Then KOMO News, a local TV and radio station, asked for an interview, and Eater Seattle wrote a story. “They wanted to help,” says Greg, to show support and help people shed their fear. Lots of people said they would come in—they wanted to eat there. So Jing and Greg got back to work and prepped to re-open on Feb. 19. The first day was great, with lots of customers coming through, but it was short-lived—the second day it all dropped off. And then things got worse: Amazon, which employs some 50,000 people in the neighborhood, including about 80% of Zheng Café’s customers, instructed its employees to work from home. “We called it quits,” says Greg. “There’s not much I can do.”
Every day, they talk to Jing’s parents in Wuhan. “They’ve been locked in,” Greg says, with a chain on the apartment building so they can’t go out. The building’s residents placed their food orders together, and when the meals arrived, the gate was unlocked, and the manager—whom Greg and Jing knew—had been bringing it to each apartment. Then she got sick and passed away within four days. Someone else took over, but food supplies are dwindling. “Now they get a cabbage, a dozen eggs, and some rice,” Greg says.
Jing’s parents are in their seventies and have breathing problems, so they can’t go out. But now that the virus is here, Jing, too, is vulnerable—she’s allergic to penicillin and some antibiotics, so a secondary infection could be deadly. While the café was open, Greg was vigilant about wiping everything down, but hearing customers coughing made them anxious.
Greg and Jing know what the virus can do from talking to friends and colleagues, and they worry that people here don’t realize the seriousness of it. “Even my dad just keeps saying it’s just the flu,” Greg notes. But he guesses it’s even worse than it sounds. “I am sure the numbers are underreported—everyone I know has lost someone,” he continues. “To think that is on the way here is really frightening.”
For now, he watches the bills pile up, including the rent at both locations. But with no income coming in and trash, power, water, and license renewals to pay, that’s not enough. The company he and Jing own in China was their extra lifeline when they’d come up short before, but that’s no help now. It’s been closed, as are all the banks. Greg debates between paying a $488 trash bill or saving to buy food and pay potential future medical bills for his family.
But letting the business go bankrupt will ruin his credit and any chance of rebuilding the business. Meanwhile, Jing is scared to go outside, with rumors of racist attacks and hate crimes on top of concerns about her own health. “The people of Wuhan didn’t deserve this,” says Greg of the blame the city has shouldered. Neither do the Wetzels nor the Zheng Café, and yet the business sits in pieces, with little plan for recovery. Greg recently put the South Lake Union space up for sale, and somebody jumped on it. If that sale goes through, he says he still hopes they might head back to the Green Lake spot and try again. But he also knows it won’t be the same: “Because we serve Wuhan food, there will always be a scar on us.”
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How coronavirus is affecting the global concert industry
—Politicians around the world are going into quarantine
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How Europe is adapting to the coronavirus outbreak
—What Xi Jinping’s visit to Wuhan says about China’s coronavirus recovery
—Conferences go online amid coronavirus fears—minus the hallway schmoozing
—Coronavirus may not be all bad for tech. Consider the “stay at home” stocks
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fortune--2020-03-14--Donald Trump tests negative for coronavirus, doctor says

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President Donald Trump has tested negative for the new coronavirus, according to the president’s personal physician.
The White House released the test results Saturday night after Trump told reporters hours earlier that he had taken the coronavirus test, following days of resisting being screened despite the fact that he had been in recent contact with three people who have tested positive for the virus.
Trump told reporters at a White House briefing on Saturday that he had his temperature taken and it was “totally normal,” shortly before stepping into the room to discuss the government’s efforts to halt the spread of the virus. The pandemic has now infected more than 2,200 people in the U.S. and caused at least 50 deaths.
The president had multiple direct and indirect contacts with people who have since tested positive for the virus, including three people he spent time with last weekend at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
The Brazilian Embassy in Washington said late Friday that the country’s chargé d’affaires, Nestor Forster, tested positive after sitting at Trump’s dinner table. So, too, have a top aide to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who took a photo with Trump and attended a party with him, and another person who attended a campaign fundraiser with the president that Sunday, according to two Republican officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss private health matters.
Trump, after days of insisting that he was not exhibiting symptoms of the virus, relented after being pressed by reporters about his resistance to testing when multiple lawmakers and countless citizens across the country who have had the same degree of exposure have not only tried to get tested, but also chosen to try to avoid potentially infecting others.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How to get a refund on your Broadway tickets after coronavirus shut down
—A Q&A with WHO special envoy David Nabarro on COVID-19
—The best Twitters to follow for reliable information on the coronavirus outbreak
—After SXSW cancellation, Austin hotels and restaurants are bracing for a rough road
—While canceling mass gatherings, the U.K. is still aiming for deliberate “herd immunity”
—Walmart, Target, CVS, and Walgreens will loan space for coronavirus test centers
—Let’s remember what we learned in WWII, as well as in 2008
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fortune--2020-03-14--U.S. providers offer free wifi for 60 days

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U.S. internet and wireless providers have announced temporary measures to make getting online less expensive and onerous as enforced social distancing due to the new coronavirus forces more human interaction online.
Most notable is Comcast’s free public Wi-Fi for all for 60 days, effective Saturday. Major metropolitan areas are thick with Comcast’s Xfinity-branded hotspots.
“I don’t get to say this often: Bravo Comcast!” tweeted Alex Stamos, a Stanford University internet security expert.
Home-based Xfinity hotspots are not included, said Comcast spokesman Joel Shadle, but Wi-Fi access points in public locations and at small businesses are.
AT&T and Charter Communications also announced free public Wi-Fi for 60 days, with Charter offering free broadband for households with students through college age who don’t already have a subscription.
Verizon was among the many providers to also announce a moratorium on late fees and disconnections.
T-Mobile announced that it would provide unlimited smartphone data to all current subscribers and increase the data allowance to schools and students using their digital learning programs.
Cox said it would increase speeds on low-cost broadband plans and Sprint said it would give subscribers unlimited data for 60 days, among other changes. Comcast and AT&T also temporarily lifted data caps.
The announcements followed a plea Thursday to internet providers by Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia and 17 other colleagues in the Senate.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How to get a refund on your Broadway tickets after coronavirus shut down
—A Q&A with WHO special envoy David Nabarro on COVID-19
—The best Twitters to follow for reliable information on the coronavirus outbreak
—After SXSW cancellation, Austin hotels and restaurants are bracing for a rough road
—While canceling mass gatherings, the U.K. is still aiming for deliberate “herd immunity”
—Walmart, Target, CVS, and Walgreens will loan space for coronavirus test centers
—Let’s remember what we learned in WWII, as well as in 2008
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fortune--2020-03-14--Georgia to postpone presidential primaries over coronavirus concerns

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Georgia election officials are postponing the state’s March 24 presidential primaries until May because of fears over the coronavirus.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement that in-person early voting, which began statewide March 2, will be halted and the election will be moved to May 19, when Georgia’s other 2020 primary elections are being held.
The action followed Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature of an emergency declaration that unlocked sweeping powers to fight COVID-19. In a speech Saturday, the governor renewed a call for places of worship, schools and others to consider canceling large gatherings as cases in the state rise.
As of Saturday, the virus had infected more than 150,000 people worldwide and killed over 5,600. Georgia is reporting 66 confirmed cases, with most concentrated around metro Atlanta. One death in the state has been caused by the virus.
Election officials said in addition to the safety of the public, one of the biggest considerations was the risk the virus posed to poll workers, who are often older.
On Friday, Louisiana became the first state to push back its presidential primaries.
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—WATCH: What happens to leftover campaign funds once a candidate drops out?
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fortune--2020-03-15--Love in the time of coronavirus: Couples are scrambling to prepare last-minute wedding alternatives

Sunday night ’ s Democratic debate is still on .
How to watch live—and what to expect

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Walking into the wedding, guests were greeted with servers holding silver trays full of hand sanitizer and were handed a glass of Champagne by a waiter wearing a white glove. A pack of Lysol wipes was placed at each guest’s seat, and rolls of monogrammed toilet paper were available too. It sounds like a parody you’d find on Saturday Night Live, but in the time of COVID-19, it just may be the reality of nuptials in 2020.
The big question on the minds of engaged couples is whether or not to go through with wedding plans in the coming weeks and months. For some, that involves the costly and time-consuming process of cancellation; for others, however, the show must go on. It’s not the first time that uncontrollable disasters have struck the wedding world: Hurricanes derailed beach weddings in the Caribbean; Zika worries deterred many from destination weddings in Mexico and beyond for years; and Sept. 11 instilled a fear of flying that still lingers. To that end, wedding planners, photographers, and caterers are coming up with creative ways to keep newlyweds and their guests safe.
“Couples are not going to stop getting married because of coronavirus,” says Amy Shey Jacobs, the planner behind Chandelier Events. “It’s not will they happen; it’s ‘how, when, where’ that is experiencing a shift. We’re moving quickly as an industry to help them pivot and prepare.”
Some events might not be possible to cancel, but there are still things you can do to carry on. Brian Leahy Photography
Jacobs, like many other planners, has gone into crisis-control mode, advising couples to be flexible about changes. Some have helped brides borrow dresses when their original gown shipments were halted, and others have negotiated with venues to decrease change fees. Destination weddings set for European cities are in the process of moving stateside.
Planner Marcy Blum even has an equation for couples to help them decide if they should commence the celebrations: “I recommend that they take a look at their guest list,” she says. “If most of their guests are between 20 and 40 and very healthy—only then would I think the wedding should take place. However, if it’s important for the couple to have their grandparents and older guests there, I recommend the couple reconsider or postpone.”
But if it’s all a go on the planned day, here are some top tips for guarding against COVID-19.
Share the information
Planners are working with couples to add sections to their wedding website and send communication to guests about safety procedures, including washing hands, carrying hand sanitizer, and interpersonal touch. Las Vegas–based event planner Andrea Eppolito has been pulling information from her local health department and discussing it with her couples and their guests.
Make hand sanitizer available
A silver tray full of mini bottles of Purell would surely be a sight, and Jacobs has made this standard for all upcoming events. Plenty of planners shared examples of how to beautifully display bottles of hand sanitizer. You can include them as part of welcome bags or set one at each place setting at the reception tables. New York City–based planner Tzo Ai Ang even suggested monogramming the bottles with the couple’s logo—something she has surprisingly done for a wedding before. (“It was an inside family joke!” she says.) If you can’t get your hands on 200 mini bottles, opt for a sanitizer station, with bulk pumps of sanitizer, wipes, and bottled water, in easily accessible locations for the ceremony and reception.
Brian Leahy Photography
Skip the hugs
As hard as it may be, avoid person-to-person contact. Renee Dalo of Moxie Bright Events suggests getting signs printed that urge guests not to hug or shake hands upon greeting, and Benjamin Chuchinsky of Cafe Wha Entertainment has enacted an elbow pump policy for everyone, including his musicians, other vendors, and any guests.
Get intimate
With states like Oregon and Washington banning events over 250 people, some couples can consider switching to a more intimate affair, says Ira Lippke, a New York City photographer and founder of The Day Collective. That can be with a select group of friends and family or even an elopement. “Once the dust settles, they can have a big party to celebrate with everyone later in the year,” he adds. It’s not unprecedented; this formula is enacted by couples all the time, even without the threat of COVID-19.
Live-stream it
Eppolito has employed tech to help solve a wedding conundrum: what to do if Grandma and Grandpa can’t fly because of the coronavirus. “I invested in 360-degree virtual cameras that will allow me to live-stream the wedding ceremony, toasts, dances, etc.,” she says of an upcoming celebration. “We are putting together a how-to guide and sending it to the family members who cannot come so that they can still watch and experience the event live.” There are a lot of other options as well, including online streaming services, and, of course, you can always have your cousin run FaceTime on an iPad. It’s not the most elegant, but it gets the point across.
Opt for white-glove service
Everyone is putting on gloves. Numerous planners shared that they purchased white gloves for staff to wear during the event, like valets, coat checkers, and servers passing out drinks—or hand sanitizer. But that’s not all. Daughter of Design’s Annie Lee is preparing for the hora at a Jewish wedding, a traditional dance in which all the guests hold hands in a circle. She’s passing out fancy gloves for guests to put on while they take part.
Brian Leahy Photography
Swap out the buffet or family-style meal
No one wants to put their hand into a cheese station when there’s a risk of coronavirus exposure. One easy way to mitigate this risk is to switch all buffets to plated meals, says Jacobs. During cocktail hour, drop appetizer stations and have hors d’oeuvres passed out on individual plates. Choose a multicourse, plated dinner instead of having guests line up at a buffet or digging into family-style entrées and sides at the table. And think about place settings: At Montage Palmetto Bluff, a resort in South Carolina, glassware is no longer proactively set on the tables, and flatware is rolled in napkins.
Clean the mic
Small tech devices like phones, computers, and car keys harbor tons of germs in general, and that goes for microphones too. Brian Buonassissi, known as DJ Brian B, is bringing along wipes to clean the mics between speeches and performances, an easily overlooked detail, he says. Similarly, Chuchinsky has ordered disposable microphone covers from Amazon for his events. This goes for photo-booth props too, which are now being cleaned between groups to limit exposure when guests don those funny oversize sunglasses.
Keep smiling
It’s a common piece of advice to go with the flow on the wedding day as snafus do arise. Just stay safe and keep smiling. “Don’t let a virus steal this amazing life experience from you,” Lippke says. “It might be different than what you planned, but you might discover that it’s even more meaningful and romantic.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—The man behind some of Napa Valley’s most acclaimed wineries
—5 things the CEO of Barry’s Bootcamp always packs when traveling
—Where you should eat, visit, and stay in Marrakech
—This Raja Ampat yacht trip might be the world’s most exclusive escape
—WATCH: Can San Francisco Be Saved?
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fortune--2020-03-15--Big business rallies behind Joe Biden

Big business rallies behind Joe Biden

Joe Biden’s surprise Super Tuesday win—followed closely by his decisive primary victories in states like Michigan and Missouri on March 10—jabbed his floundering campaign with a shot of adrenaline, vaulting him ahead in the polls and the delegate count. But as dramatic as those gains may be, they pale in comparison to what the triumph is poised to do to his campaign coffers.
At the end of 2019, it took the Biden campaign a full three months to drum up about $22 million, a figure that put him squarely behind Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg. In the week following his 10-state victory, Biden brought in the same sum in just five days.
“It’s an avalanche now,” says John Morgan, an attorney and top bundler for Biden, of the incoming interest in backing the former Veep. The question has gone from, Will there be enough cash to get through the month? to “Will there enough time in the day to go to all of these fundraising events?” says Morgan. “Everyone is clamoring to hold them.” (The Biden campaign did not respond to requests for an interview.)
Biden has long had the backing of some deep-pocketed execs, such as former U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Avenue Capital Group’s Marc Lasry. But in the days since Super Tuesday he’s attracted new ones. Gilbert Andrew Garcia, managing partner of bond firm Garcia Hamilton & Associates and former supporter of Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign, says he’s now “100% behind Joe”—as is the ex New York City mayor himself. Bloomberg has pledged to throw his financial might behind his old rival and reportedly plans to create a new organization to help Biden win in six primary battleground states—and eventually take on President Donald Trump.
Biden, who had just $3.4 million to spend on ads in Super Tuesday states—as compared with Sanders’ $18.5 million—is expected to use his newfound cash to boost staffing in key states and up his ad profile. Indeed, after his initial surge Biden invested an additional $10.3 million in TV spots in states like Ohio, Florida, and Michigan, outspending the Sanders campaign, according to data from Advertising Analytics.
Another likely budget line: aiding down-ballot congressional races, says Lawrence Norden, director of the Brennan Center’s electoral reform program. Part of Biden’s appeal is his promise to hold the House and turn the Senate blue, so backing those races is essential to buttressing his support.
Team Sanders, meanwhile, says it’s not cowed by Biden’s growing war chest. “Bernie doesn’t spend his time holding fancy fundraising events to ask billionaires for money,” says digital fundraising director Robin Curran.
Of course, if Biden’s bid to land the nomination is successful, he’ll face the President—and the roughly $93 million the Trump campaign had on hand at the beginning of the year. Time will tell if Biden’s bankrollers are ready to go dollar-for-dollar with the power of the presidential purse.
Big Number
$22 Million
Biden’s five-day fundraising total after Super Tuesday; last year he raised the same amount over three months
Sources: Biden campaign; FEC
A version of this article appears in the April 2020 issue of Fortune with the headline “In the Money.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Bloomberg, Sanders, and Warren want to use post offices as banks
—Politics with your coffee? These cafés are taking sides
—Are we undergoing an industrial revolution or a phase change?
—How the 2020 election could influence your personal finances
—WATCH: What happens to leftover campaign funds once a candidate drops out?
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fortune--2020-03-15--Saudi Aramco shares sink as the oil price war and coronavirus toll escalates

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Saudi Aramco is cutting planned spending this year, in the first sign that the oil-price war the kingdom unleashed is hitting home.
Capital expenditure will be between $25 billion and $30 billion in 2020 and the spending plans for next year and beyond are being reviewed, Aramco said. The oil giant is lowering that range from the planned $35 billion to $40 billion announced in its IPO prospectus, and compared with $32.8 billion in 2019.
“We have already taken steps to rationalize our planned 2020 capital spending,” Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser said. Given the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on economic growth and demand, Aramco is adopting “a flexible approach to capital allocation,” he said.
The oil-price war led by Saudi Arabia and Russia threatens more pain for the company as producing nations prepare to boost supply. Discounted pricing to markets already reeling from weak demand and crude that lost roughly half its value since the beginning of the year threaten a further hit to revenue.
The shares fell as much as 0.5% on Sunday, extending the decline this year to 18%. Aramco’s market value has declined from a peak of over $2 trillion in December to about $1.5 trillion.
The coronavirus’ knock-out blow to oil use has overwhelmed OPEC’s initial optimism on demand this year, with analysts now expecting a drop in consumption. The OPEC+ group’s failure on March 6 to agree on further cuts is only exacerbating a glut as buyers search for storage tanks and vessels.
Saudi Arabia, Russia and others intend to boost production once the current accord to lower output expires in March. The kingdom pledged to supply 25% more oil in April than it produced last month, and Wednesday ordered Aramco to boost output capacity by 1 million barrels a day.
Key 2019 numbers:
Net income including minority interests: 330.7 billion riyals ($88 billion) vs 416.5 billion riyals a year ago
Revenue: 1.11 trillion riyals vs 1.19 trillion riyals
Operating profit: 674.9 billion riyals vs 798.4 billion riyals
Oil prices fell last year even as Saudi Arabia trimmed output as part of efforts between OPEC and other producers to rein in production. Drone and missile attacks on two of its biggest facilities in September temporarily slashed production by more than half, but didn’t cause a big surge in prices.
Brent crude averaged $64.12 a barrel in 2019 compared with $71.67 the previous year. Saudi production slipped to an average of 9.83 million barrels a day from 10.65 million in 2018, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Aramco restored output to pre-attack levels by early October.
Aramco’s 2018 net of $111 billion made it by far the world’s most profitable company, exceeding the combined incomes of some of the world’s biggest companies including Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and Alphabet Inc.
—With assistance from Verity Ratcliffe.
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—How to get a refund on your Broadway tickets after coronavirus shut down
—A Q&A with WHO special envoy David Nabarro on COVID-19
—The best Twitters to follow for reliable information on the coronavirus outbreak
—After SXSW cancellation, Austin hotels and restaurants are bracing for a rough road
—While canceling mass gatherings, the U.K. is still aiming for deliberate “herd immunity”
—Walmart, Target, CVS, and Walgreens will loan space for coronavirus test centers
—Let’s remember what we learned in WWII, as well as in 2008
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-15--Sunday night’s Democratic debate is still on. How to watch live—and what to expect

Shut down !
Why the world ’ s stock markets kept going quiet last week

And then there were two.
Sunday evening’s Democratic primary debate between former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders takes place amidst a whirlwind of worldwide chaos.
The two septuagenarian presidential hopefuls will take to the stage in Washington, D.C., as the coronavirus pandemic threatens to infect millions of Americans (many of whom can’t afford healthcare), markets experience COVID-19 panic swings, and thousands of businesses face bankruptcy over a lack of customers.
The debate, which is hosted by CNN and Univision, was originally supposed to be town hall style and take place in Phoenix, Arizona. But on Thursday, it was moved to CNN’s studios in Washington, D.C., with no live audience due to coronavirus fears.
“Out of an abundance of caution and in order to reduce cross-country travel, all parties have decided that the best path forward is to hold Sunday’s debate at CNN’s studio in Washington,” said Democratic National Committee communications director Xochitl Hinojosa in a statement.
The DNC also announced that Univision’s Jorge Ramos would no longer be a debate moderator after potentially being exposed to the virus.
“Our number one priority has and will continue to be the safety of our staff, campaigns, and all those involved in the debate,” said Hinojosa.
There will be no press center or spin room at the event, meaning that the post-mortem interviews with the candidates and their surrogates that viewers have grown used to will likely be nixed this time around.
Still, the show must go on, albeit cautiously.
How to watch the Democratic debate live
The debate will air on CNN and Univision at 8 p.m. E.T. Sunday night and will be available to stream in full on the CNNgo app at no cost.
What to watch for during Sunday’s debate
As primary season marches on through June, Sanders and Biden find themselves in a tight race, within about 150 delegates of one another. That’s a relatively small divide considering that there are still another 2,197 delegates to be earned. Biden is currently the Democratic frontrunner, but the race is still very much anyone’s for the taking.
The Sanders campaign is hoping that Sunday’s face-off will mark a turning point for the democratic socialist, who has made two public addresses to the nation this week about COVID-19 and to challenge Biden.
In a Wednesday address, Sanders acknowledged that his campaign had taken a large blow on Super Tuesday and the Tuesday that followed.
“Last night, obviously, was not a good night for our campaign from a delegate point of view,” he said. “While our campaign has won the ideological debate, we are losing the debate over electability.”
While there was buzz that Sanders would use the speech to exit the race, he instead focused a large portion of it on previewing what he would be asking Biden during Sunday’s debate, placing a great amount of significance on the event.
“Joe, what are you going to do for the 500,000 people who go bankrupt in our country because of medically related debt?” he asked. “Joe, importantly, what are you going to do to end the absurdity of billionaires buying elections and the three wealthiest people in America owning more wealth than the bottom half of our people?”
Biden has struggled through the DNC’s previous 10 debates, appearing to have difficulty forming clear and concise answers.
On the campaign trail, he often fumbles lines or makes factual errors (like saying he is running for the U.S. Senate). President Donald Trump has picked up on these gaffes and is already using them against Biden.
“WOW! Sleepy Joe doesn’t know where he is, or what he’s doing,” he tweeted this month. “Honestly, I don’t think he even knows what office he’s running for!”
The question is whether he can stay focused and sharp in these debates, and if Sanders will be able to draw attention to any potential non-answers by Biden, while keeping things civil.
The candidates, who have sharply differing views on the future of the Democratic party, will also likely make some concessions to one another in order to try to gain potential voters on either side of the democratic spectrum.
Will Biden attempt to woo some hardcore Sanders supporters by adopting more progressive stances on Medicare and a Green New Deal? It’s possible that he’ll make a direct appeal to Sanders supporters with promises to move further left on certain issues. But will Sanders attempt to broaden his base of support by trying to appeal to more moderate Democrats?
That’s a more unlikely prospect. Sanders’ consistently progressive agenda is a big selling point on his campaign, and if anything, he’ll use his airtime on Sunday to hammer home the same ideas he’s been pushing for nearly half a century.
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Two septuagenarian presidential hopefuls will take to the stage in Washington D.C. as a pandemic threatens to infect millions of Americans (many of whom can’t afford healthcare), markets experience COVID-19 panic swings, and thousands of businesses face bankruptcy over a lack of customers.


fortune--2020-03-15--Shut down! Why the world’s stock markets kept going quiet last week

Halting trade in the world’s stock markets because of plunging share prices used to be a once-in-a-generation event. No longer.
U.S. stock trading was stopped twice last week to give panicky investors a 15-minute breather just as coronavirus pandemic fears drove markets into free-fall. The last and only previous time the so-called “circuit breaker” time-out went into force was back in 1997.
The U.S. was hardly alone. Last week’s global rout triggered circuit-breaker moments on stock markets in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and India. And in Brazil, the benchmark Bovespa index stock market was halted twice on Thursday.
The rules differ by exchange on what has to happen in order to trigger the stop-trading order.
In the U.S., circuit breakers first kicks in when the S&P 500 drops by 7% in a session. In India, the Philippines and Thailand, trading is temporarily halted when the local benchmark index drops by 10% and in Indonesia when it falls 5%.
Why Europe doesn’t call a full time-out
In Europe, where some of the most volatile trading occurred last week, there are no market-wide or index-linked circuit breakers. So, when Italy’s FTSE MIB fell 17% on Thursday, there was little for traders to do but hope and pray. Instead, the European bourses have circuit breakers for individual shares, generally halting automated trading in those stocks for a few minutes after a sharp fall while an auction is held.
In fact, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) notched up an exceptionally high number of these trading halts—dubbed “price monitoring extensions”—in last week’s rollercoaster which saw the benchmark FTSE 100 fall by 7.6% on Monday, and then by 10.9% on Thursday.
There were more trading halts on FTSE 100 companies in the first four days of last week—154—than in the whole of 2019 when 119 were recorded, according to LSE data shared with Fortune.
You’d have to go all the way back to 2016, in the aftermath of Britain’s shock vote to leave the European Union, to witness the level of suspensions that were called on Monday, a market source said.
It was also a very busy week for the Frankfurt Stock Exchange’s Xetra electronic trading system. It does not have market-wide circuit breakers, but uses what it calls “volatility interruptions” to declare a time out when there are wide swings in the price of an individual stock. During a volatility interruption, Xetra slows down trading by switching from continuous trading in a particular share to a two-minute auction.
In the first three trading hours last Monday, Xetra chalked up an unusually high 1,300 extended volatility interruptions on Xetra. To compare—even on the frantic trading day after the 2016 Brexit vote, it had 1,198 volatility interruptions for the whole day.
The pros
Circuit breakers have their pros and cons. Supporters say they stop panic, forcing investors to take a more considered view, and allow time for any mismatch between buy and sell orders to be sorted out.
They can also provide valuable breathing space to figure out what’s going on when there is a “flash crash” caused by a trader’s “fat finger” slip or high-frequency trading.
In one notorious case, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged by nearly 1,000 points on May 6, 2010, wiping $1 trillion off U.S. stocks, after a mutual fund sold $4.1 billion of EMini S&P 500 futures contracts via an automated execution algorithm in 20 minutes, causing a liquidity crisis in that market. That wasn’t enough to trigger circuit breakers in place at the time, which in those days required a 10% drop in the Dow.
The cons
Critics say it can fuel panic among investors if they are prevented from selling their shares at that moment, and that setting a percentage trigger can encourage nervous investors to dump their shares in a sliding market before the circuit breaker kicks in and stops them from selling for a while.
A source at one European stock market said circuit breakers focused on individual stocks had worked well, whereas market-wide suspensions could lead to greater uncertainty among market participants and further increase volatility.
In last week’s cases, the U.S. trading halts didn’t produce any miraculous recovery but may have slowed the slide—the S&P 500 lost 7.6% Monday and 9.5% Thursday on the days the circuit breakers went into effect.
The China experience
After a series of sharp sell-offs in the Chinese stock market in 2015, the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges introduced a circuit breaker early in January 2016. The mechanism suspended trade for 15 minutes when the market fell by 5%, and halted it for the day after a fall of 7%. But the mechanism was scrapped within days after trade was halted twice.
The experience reinforced the criticism by some market watchers that such mechanisms are actually counter-productive. “The circuit- breaker mechanism is an artificial interruption of the market correction and it may actually strengthen the impact of the correction.” Zhu Bin, analyst at Southwest Securities in Shanghai, told the Financial Times at the time.
U.S. circuit breakers
Circuit breakers were introduced in the U.S. after the Black Monday stock market crash of October 19, 1987 when the Dow fell by more than 22%, still the biggest one-day percentage drop on record.
Before this week, market-wide circuit breakers were only triggered once before, on October 27, 1997, when trading was halted first for a half-hour and later for the remainder of the day, with the Dow ending down 7.2%.
The rules, initially linked to points changes in the DJIA, have since been refined and now apply to percentage moves in the S&P 500.
A cross-market trading halt can be triggered at three circuit breaker thresholds—a 7%-fall in the S&P 500 compared with the previous day’s close (Level 1), a 13% decline (Level 2), and a 20% drop (Level 3).
A market decline that triggers a Level 1 or Level 2 circuit breaker before 3:25 p.m. will halt market-wide trading for 15 minutes, while a similar market decline “at or after” 3:25 p.m. will not halt market-wide trading. A market decline that triggers a Level 3 circuit breaker, at any time during the trading day, will cease market-wide trading for the remainder of the trading day.
Like the European exchanges, the U.S. also has limits on moves in individual stocks, introduced in response to the 2010 “flash crash.” The “Limit Up-Limit Down Mechanism,” approved by the Securities and Exchanges Commission in 2012, prevents trades in individual stocks from happening outside a specified price band. This price band is set at a percentage level above and below the average price of the stock over the previous five minutes of trading. If a stock’s price does not move back within the price band in 15 seconds, it mandates a five-minute trading pause.
The European experience
Euronext, which operates stock markets in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, Lisbon and Oslo, uses a system of circuit breakers triggered by big price moves in individual shares. It generally calls a 3-minute trading halt if share prices move outside of a certain range.
“Euronext’s general philosophy is not to halt trading except in extreme circumstances. To achieve this, we do not rely on circuit-breakers alone, but on a full set of trading safeguards,” Euronext says on its website.
Other market protection mechanisms used by Euronext include the power to reject aberrant orders (that are unusually large in size or in units/price) before they enter the market and the ability to halt instruments subject to single orders that might disrupt the market.
The European Securities and Markets Authority published a study in January analyzing the market impact of circuit breakers. Using a unique database of circuit breakers triggered between April and December 2016 on a sample of 10,000 financial instruments traded on European Union exchanges, it concluded that price volatility was significantly lower after the circuit breaker was triggered, while bid-ask spreads widen and the price discovery process was not negatively affected.
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fortune--2020-03-15--NYC schools to close to fight coronavirus

Nike and Apple lead ranks of retailers temporarily closing U.S. stores during coronavirus crisis

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New York City will close the nation’s largest public school system as early as Tuesday, sending over 1.1 million children home in hopes of curbing the spread of coronavirus.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the decision on Sunday, following a growing number of school closures in communities and entire states around the country and mounting pressure in New York from residents, City Council members and others.
The shutdown affects the city’s nearly 1,900 public schools. Many private schools already have closed.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had been reluctant to close the school system because of the consequences for students and families. Just Saturday, the Democratic mayor said keeping schools running was critical. He worried that health care workers, first responders and other needed workers would have to stay home to care for children, and that hundreds of thousands of poor students could go hungry without their free or reduced-price school meals.
Multiple states had already announced they were closing schools. So have cities including Los Angeles, Houston, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
The shutdown had started to seem inevitable Sunday as de Blasio lost key support to keep schools open and Cuomo called for all downstate schools to be closed.
“For New York City, I want to close the New York City public schools,” the Democratic governor had said earlier in the day, adding he thought it prudent to do so as soon as a plan was in place to ensure that children of health care workers would be cared for.
Cuomo spoke shortly after county officials shut schools in Long Island and, across the state, in all of Erie County, including Buffalo.
Earlier, George Gresham, president of the healthcare workers union SIEU 1199, had called on de Blasio to close city schools, a step the mayor still seemed reluctant to take when he cited the union’s support for keeping the schools open as he spoke on WABC-TV earlier Sunday.
The union had previously warned that hospitals, now bracing for a flood of virus patients, could face a manpower crisis if schools closed suddenly and health care workers had to stay home with their children.
Gresham, though, said in a statement that he was now confident that a plan could be reached to provide childcare for healthcare workers through school resource centers. He also called on the city and state to provide more funding for childcare for health care workers.
“With these critical processes moving, I am now calling on Mayor de Blasio to close New York City’s public schools to help protect public health and prevent the spread of COVID-19,” he said in a statement.
On Sunday morning, Nassau County County Executive Laura Curran announced that schools throughout the county adjacent to New York City would be closed for at least the next two weeks. Nassau County has more than 1.3 million residents.
Later in the day, the Suffolk County executive announced that schools there would be closed as well for the next two weeks.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How to get a refund on your Broadway tickets after coronavirus shut down
—A Q&A with WHO special envoy David Nabarro on COVID-19
—The best Twitters to follow for reliable information on the coronavirus outbreak
—After SXSW cancellation, Austin hotels and restaurants are bracing for a rough road
—While canceling mass gatherings, the U.K. is still aiming for deliberate “herd immunity”
—Walmart, Target, CVS, and Walgreens will loan space for coronavirus test centers
—Let’s remember what we learned in WWII, as well as in 2008
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-15--Fed slashes rates to near zero, eases bank lending rules

Stay in the know on how the coronavirus outbreak is impacting the global business economy with our daily newsletter Outbreak.
The Federal Reserve took emergency action Sunday and slashed its benchmark interest rate by a full percentage point to nearly zero and announced it would purchase more Treasury securities to encourage lending to try to offset the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. The central bank said the effects of the outbreak will weigh on economic activity in the near term and pose risks to the economic outlook. The central bank said it will keep rates at nearly zero until it feels confident the economy has weathered recent events.
The Fed also said it will purchase $500 billion of Treasury securities and $200 billion of mortgage-backed securities to smooth over market disruptions that have made it hard for banks and large investors to sell Treasuries.
The disruptions bumped up the yield on the 10-year Treasury last week, an unusual move that threatens to push borrowing costs for mortgages and credit cards higher. The Fed also said it has dropped its requirements that banks hold cash reserves in another move to encourage lending.
The Fed also announced that it has cut interest rates on dollar loans in a joint action that it has taken with five central banks overseas. That is intended to ensure that foreign banks continue to have access to dollars that they lend to overseas companies.
All told, the Fed’s actions amount to a recognition that the U.S. economy faces its most perilous juncture since the recession ended more than a decade ago.
By aggressively slashing its benchmark short-term rate to near zero and pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the financial system, the Fed’s moves Sunday recalled the emergency action it took at the height of the financial crisis. Starting in 2008, the Fed cut its key rate to near zero and kept it there for seven years. The central bank has now returned that rate — which influences many consumer and business loans — to its record-low level.
Still, with the virus’ spread causing a broad shutdown of economic activity in the United States, the Fed faces a daunting task. Its tools — intended to ease borrowing rates, facilitate lending and boost confidence — aren’t ideally suited to offset a fear-driven halt in spending and traveling.
“We have to hope that the Fed getting out in front of events, not to mention other central banks, pushes the economy in the right direction,’’ said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “The heavy lifting for stimulus and for preventing lasting economic damage has to be done on the fiscal side. That’s nature of this shock.’’
“It confirms that the Fed sees the economy going down … very sharply’’ toward recession, Posen said.
Posen advocates fiscal steps such as providing sick leave and pay for quarantined workers and rolling over bank loans to small and medium sized businesses hit hard by the outbreak.
Earlier, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that both the central bank and the federal government have tools at their disposal to support the economy.
Mnuchin also said he did not think the economy is yet in recession. Most economists, however, believe a recession is already here, or will be soon.. JPMorgan Chase predicts the economy will shrink 2% in the current quarter and 3% in the April-June quarter.
“I don’t think so,” Mnuchin said, when asked if the U.S. is in recession. “The real issue is what economic tools are we going to use to make sure we get through this.”
On Saturday, President Donald Trump reiterated his frequent demand that the Fed “get on board and do what they should do,” reflecting his argument that benchmark U.S. rates should be as low as they are in Europe and Japan, where they’re now negative. Negative rates are generally seen as a sign of economic distress, and there’s little evidence that they help stimulate growth. Fed officials have indicated that they’re unlikely to cut rates below zero.
With the virus depressing travel, spending, and corporate investment and forcing the cancellation of sports leagues, business conferences, music performances, and Broadway shows, economists increasingly expect the economy to shrink for at least one or two quarters. A six-month contraction would meet an informal definition of a recession.
Two weeks ago, in a surprise move, the Fed sought to offset the disease’s drags on the economy by cutting its short-term rate by a half-percentage point — its first cut between policy meetings since the financial crisis. Its benchmark rate is now in a range of 1% to 1.25%. Some analysts have forecast that the Fed will reduce its rate by just one-half or three-quarters of a point on Wednesday, rather than by a full point.
But policymakers have largely accepted research that says once its benchmark rate approaches zero, it would produce a greater economic benefit to cut all the way to zero rather than just to a quarter- or half-point above. That’s because it takes time for rate cuts to work their way through the economy. So if a recession threatens, quicker action is more effective.
Some of the attention Wednesday will likely be on what steps the Fed takes to further smooth the functioning of bond markets, a topic that can seem esoteric but that serves a fundamental role in the functioning of the economy. The rate on the 10-year Treasury influences a range of borrowing costs for businesses and consumers, including mortgage and credit card rates. If banks and investors can’t seamlessly trade those securities, borrowing rates might rise throughout the economy.
“Even more important than the Fed’s rate-cutting function is the market-calming function,” said David Wilcox, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former head of research at the Fed.
The central bank took a huge step in that direction Thursday, when it said it would provide $1.5 trillion of short-term loans to banks. The central bank will provide the cash to interested banks in return for Treasuries. The loans will be repaid after one or three months.
That program is a response to signs that the bond market has been disrupted in recent days as many traders and banks have sought to unload large sums of Treasurys but haven’t found enough willing buyers. That logjam reduced bond prices and raised their yields — the opposite of what typically happens when the stock market plunges.
The Fed also said last week that it would broaden its $60 billion monthly Treasury purchase program, launched last fall, from just short-term bills to all maturities. The Fed is already reinvesting $20 billion from its holdings of mortgage-backed securities into Treasuries of all durations, thereby bringing its total purchases to $80 billion.
Those purchases would help relieve banks of the Treasuries they want to sell. Some analysts expect the Fed to extend those purchases past their current end-date of the second quarter and even vastly increase the size.
Guy LeBas, chief fixed income strategist for Janney Capital Management, said the Fed could boost its purchases to up to $1 trillion or more over the next year. The goal wouldn’t be to directly stimulate the economy, as the Fed did with its bond purchases during and after the recession, LeBas said. Those purchases were known as “quantitative easing” or QE.
Rather, the idea would be to take more Treasuries off banks’ balance sheets. That, in turn, would boost banks’ cash reserves and enable them to lend more. Still, most economists would likely refer to the purchases as QE.
“Shifting hundreds of billions of dollars of assets quickly doesn’t happen without central bank intervention,” LeBas said.
Another option would be to relaunch a program that lets banks use corporate bonds and other securities as collateral to borrow from the Fed.
On Wednesday, the Fed’s policymakers will also update their forecasts for the economy and for interest rates. Economists at Pimco predict that the Fed’s policymakers will collectively downgrade their estimate for growth this year from 2% to below 1.5%. That figure would be consistent with an economic contraction in the first half of the year, followed by a sharp rebound, Pimco said.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How to get a refund on your Broadway tickets after coronavirus shut down
—A Q&A with WHO special envoy David Nabarro on COVID-19
—The best Twitters to follow for reliable information on the coronavirus outbreak
—After SXSW cancellation, Austin hotels and restaurants are bracing for a rough road
—While canceling mass gatherings, the U.K. is still aiming for deliberate “herd immunity”
—Walmart, Target, CVS, and Walgreens will loan space for coronavirus test centers
—Let’s remember what we learned in WWII, as well as in 2008
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-15--Nike and Apple lead ranks of retailers temporarily closing U.S. stores during coronavirus crisis

How to be effective when you ’ re presenting remotely

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The chorus of retailers temporarily closing their U.S. stores or cutting hours is growing by the day as the coronavirus outbreak accelerates.
Nike said on Sunday it would close all of its stores in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand starting Monday through March 27 to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. The sportswear company, which has almost 400 U.S. stores, said its stores in South Korea, Japan, and most of China, markets where the outbreak is past peak, have re-opened. Under Armour is also losing its stores.
Abercrombie & Fitch, which also operates the Hollister chain, said it will shut its stores through March 28th. And in an ominous sign for many mall-based clothing retailers, Abercrombie on Sunday morning withdrew its 2020 sales forecast, saying there was too much uncertainty over the duration of the outbreak but that “it expects material adverse impacts.” (The Gap Inc said on Thursday it had already lost $100 million in sales in Asia alone this quarter.)
Late Friday, Apple said it was shutting its stores in the U.S. and other Western markets through March 27 for a total of 450 locations in the tech company’s fleet.
“The most effective way to minimize risk of the virus’s transmission is to reduce density and maximize social distance,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in a statement posted on Apple’s website. All of the company’s stores in China have re-opened.
Last week, a host of retailers, large and small—Patagonia, Urban Outfitters, Warby Parker, Glossier, Everlane and Allbirds—among others made similar announcements. Like Nike, Apple and Abercrombie said they will continue to pay staff while stores are closed.
Some retailers so far have opted instead for shortened hours. Walmart, the largest U.S. grocer by far, said this weekend that starting March 15, Walmart’s stores, as well as its Neighborhood Markets locations which are smaller but focused much more on food, would be open 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. until further notice to allow workers to re-stock shelves and clean the locations. The retailer has seen a run on many stores as shoppers stock up on essentials. Walmart said on Friday it would offer some of its parking lots to the federal government as a place to conduct coronovirus testing. Stop and Shop and Publix as well as Kroger have also announced shorter business hours.
Lululemon Athletica had initially cut hours but will now close entirely through the 27th, the company said on Sunday.
According to Johns Hopkins University, which has been tracking the outbreak, there have been at least 156,400 cases of the new coronavirus reported globally as of Sunday morning, and at least 5,833 deaths. In the United States, authorities are coming under pressure to minimize how much exposure people have to one another. Hoboken, New Jersey, for example, imposed a curfew and closed bars and gyms, among other businesses, this weekend.
The pressure on large national retailers is likely to grow because of such moves.
Vibhu Norby, the CEO of tech retailer b8ta, on Saturday tweeted a letter from the management of Simon Property Group’s King of Prussia mall in suburban Philadelphia, the second largest in the U.S., to its tenants. They letter told those businesses it expected them to comply with Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s recommendation last week that all non-essential retail—meaning any store other than a gas station, a grocer or a drugstore—close. A spokeswoman for Simon, which owns the King of Prussia mall, did not immediately to a Fortune request for comment.
This morning, King of Prussia Mall sent the attached notice to all of its tenants. In all likelihood, we will receive a similar notice from all of our shopping center REITs and landlords in the next week. pic.twitter.com/rxUP3fASHh — Vibhu Norby (@vibhu) March 14, 2020
The retailers that have announced temporary store closings all touted their e-commerce stores as a substitute. Yet many chains rely on stores as key distribution and order retrieval points in their e-commerce networks, so the closings will be a major test of their digital infrastructure.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How to get a refund on your Broadway tickets after coronavirus shut down
—A Q&A with WHO special envoy David Nabarro on COVID-19
—The best Twitters to follow for reliable information on the coronavirus outbreak
—After SXSW cancellation, Austin hotels and restaurants are bracing for a rough road
—While canceling mass gatherings, the U.K. is still aiming for deliberate “herd immunity”
—Walmart, Target, CVS, and Walgreens will loan space for coronavirus test centers
—Let’s remember what we learned in WWII, as well as in 2008
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-15--Cheap fares luring travelers to fly despite pandemic

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With the coronavirus pandemic escalating in the U.S. and overseas, Dylcia McBlackwell couldn’t justify taking a single spring vacation. Air fares were so cheap, she decided to book three.
Now the 39-year-old food service worker from Chicago has tickets to fly to Denver to visit friends next month followed by a May trip to Charleston, South Carolina. After that, she’s booked a flight to Costa Rica. All for a combined total of $435 for trips that might normally cost $700 or more.
“You have just one life to live,” said McBlackwell, who plans to bring wipes to disinfect the tray tables in front of her airplane seats, and perhaps her own snacks. “Are you going to spend it sitting in your house scared? I’d rather be out enjoying it.”
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The vast majority of people recover.
Regardless, airlines are seeing bookings plummet and cancellations soar as fear of infection causes many Americans to avoid flying. Travel to the U.S. has been barred from most of Europe, China and Iran. Domestically, business conferences, sporting events, music festivals and other large public gatherings have been scrapped or postponed.
Airlines have been slashing flight schedules, especially on international routes, to cope with downward-spiraling demand from fearful leisure customers and a slowdown in business travel. One industry trade group has warned the pandemic could cost airlines worldwide up to $113 billion in revenue.
The proliferation of empty airline seats has some travelers making spur-of-the-moment ticket purchases to take advantage of steeply discounted prices.
“Travel is one of my favorite things to do and I’m always looking at flights to different places,” said Nick Williams of Muncie, Indiana. “I have never seen flights this cheap before.”
During his recent spring break, the 22-year-old Ball State University student paid $110 round trip to visit friends in Orlando, Florida. As soon as he returned to Indiana, he spotted a weekend fare back to Orlando for just $65.
“I was in Muncie for less than 48 hours,” said Williams, who hopped right back onto a plane to Florida. “I felt a little crazy doing it. But those opportunities don’t always arise.”
Williams isn’t oblivious to the coronavirus. Since his Florida trips, Ball State has canceled in-person classes for the rest of the spring semester. Courses will still be held online, but Williams said the campus seems eerily quiet. Unafraid to fly domestically, he’s ruled out overseas trips for now.
And cheap fares aren’t expected to overcome many travelers’ fears.
“If you are scared of flying, you are probably scared at any price,” Delta President Glen Hauenstein said recently.
Asked about younger travelers taking advantage of cheap airfares, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams told reporters Thursday that those visiting countries where coronavirus is spreading should avoid contact with older relatives and family with chronic medical conditions for 14 days after returning.
“Don’t come home and then visit grandma in the nursing home,” Adams told a news conference in New Orleans. “Don’t go hang out around grandpa at Easter dinner and tell him all about the great trip that you just had to Europe.”
Yago Ferreira didn’t think much about the virus when he booked two trips earlier this month. The 27-year-old tech salesman from Belmont, California, is set to fly to Brazil in August for $800 — a little more than half what he’s used to paying for his annual trip to see family. He also picked up a $250 ticket for an Easter trip to surprise his mother in New Jersey.
About two days after Ferreira booked his flights, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus’ spread a pandemic. And there was news that three Transportation Security Administration officers at a California airport had tested positive for COVID-19.
“I noticed that it’s starting to get a little bit worse,” said Ferreira, adding he intends to stick to his travel plans. “It’s starting, not to worry me, but it’s keeping me wary.”
For Adriano Mirchou of Orem, Utah, a $250 plane ticket provided an unexpected chance to make an upcoming trip to tour the University of Miami, which recently accepted him into its film school.
Now coronavirus worries have shut down classes at the university, also upending 25-year-old Mirchou’s plans to visit the campus. He still intends to make the Miami trip and spend it hanging out with a friend.
Changing course because of the virus isn’t on his itinerary.
“I don’t think I’d be in harm’s way just by traveling,” Mirchou said. “It could happen to anybody. But at the same time, I don’t think it’ll happen to me.”


fortune--2020-03-15--How to be effective when you’re presenting remotely

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As COVID-19 officially became a global pandemic this week, millions of American workers are turning to remote work. Over the next few weeks, you can expect a lot of in-person meetings and presentations will move to Zoom and other video conferencing formats.
How to remain effective when presenting remotely will become a key question for much of the workforce, which still relies upon in-person connection even in this immensely digital era. The answer involves adjusting for changed environmental factors that may prevent you from getting your point across.
“Your exact presence in that moment can feel very different [while remote],” says Amy Landino, author and host of AmyTV, who also recently led the lesson on digital presentations in Knowable’s Speaking with Confidence course.
Landino says she’s seen a lot of conference calls veer wildly off-track, so recognize when it’s your moment to step up. “No matter where you are communicating, you’re being looked at as a leader,” she says. “When you are behind the safety of a laptop or a webcam, this is the moment you need to take it even more seriously.”
It’s all too easy to forget the seriousness of work while you’re at home. “When we are at home, we have an advantage of feeling like we are not going to work,” says Jeanny Chai, a leadership authority coach and founder of BambooMyth.com. “You need to get into work mode. Put on a pair of shoes; do your hair and makeup. Don’t think you can just jump out of shower and walk into your meeting. That vibe will come through.”
Here’s how experts say you can get comfortable–without getting too comfortable.
Adjust your environment
When you walk into a conference room for a meeting, it’s probably minimalistic—designed to avoid distractions that might take away from your presentation. You want to create a similar effect in your office space for remote work, says Carla Bevins, assistant teaching professor of business communications at Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business. “You want to have the right lighting, a good camera, and a good setting,” she says. “Adjust the camera so you are not looking down into it. Elevate so it is at eye level.”
Make sure the background is professional, clean, and organized, says Bevins. Though you might be working with others at home, try to get into a silent area where you will not be interrupted. Climb out of those sweatpants and into clothes that match your work’s dress code. “Think about the contrast with clothing,” she says. “A lot of time, darker or solid colors have better contrast, where a top with stripes might zigzag across the screen and look strange onscreen.”
Communication expert Celeste Headlee says lighting is critical. “Keep the focus on you and make sure you don’t have distracting items, pictures, or windows behind you,” says Headlee, host of Knowable’s Speak with Confidence course and author of Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving. .
“Purchase a nice LED light for your camera or smartphone and place it at eye level. Never use fluorescent lights, which are unflattering, or overhead lights, which can create unfortunate shadows.”
Prepare your slide deck
If you’re giving a short presentation or an update on progress, you may not need to provide materials to your remote audience in advance. But if it’s longer, please do. “If you’re having a more formal meeting, it’s very important to have a structured agenda set up,” says Bevins. “See if you can connect with your audience ahead of time to see if there’s things they need, like a slide deck or executive summary. Maybe they want to think through it and have questions ready to go.”
If the presentation involves complex ideas or numbers, get the slide deck out. “I definitely think if something is going to get too far into the weeds, where looking at your face isn’t going to get the point across, slides are important,” says Landino. “You don’t want to overload them, but this is a resource you can walk them through.”
Bevins says to make sure slides are clear with one idea per slide, so it is easy for your audience to stick with you.
“But remember your visual aide is just that: an aide,” she says. “Your audience still wants to learn from you. What happens a lot of time in these mediums and in online presentations is that you become a voiceover for the slides.”
Of course, know the vibe of your company. If your colleagues would find a slide deck totally weird, pass on this step, and focus on how you get your ideas across in the meeting.
Stay commanding
Speaking of not becoming a voiceover, addressing your audience the right way is critical.
“I think it’s important to make them feel like they’re in the room,” says Landino. “The major resonating factor, which makes them feel like they’re in the room, is really knowing your audience. If you don’t understand who you are talking to, even if you are with them everyday, you won’t get your point across.” She says aim to make each listener feel like you are talking directly to them.
To accomplish this, Bevins has a trick. “I put a smiley face sticker right behind the camera so I have someone to talk to,” she says. “If there’s a key phrase, I will put it on there, too. It is absolutely the lowest-level technology, but it works.” She also says to slow down while you are speaking. “Sometimes the internet connections are good, sometimes they are not.” Aim for clear articulation, steady pace, at a lower volume near the microphone, Bevins suggests.
There’s also a tendency to be stilted instead of natural when you are looking at a computer, says Bevins, who recommends to continue gesturing like a normal conversation. “Make sure you still know your audience, and you are talking with, not at, your audience,” she says. “Ask them to participate… A lot of times when there is an online meeting, it’s easier for the loud voices to get louder and soft voices to get softer.”
Let’s say everyone is trying to talk over others and get a word in. “When there is too much interruption happening, the first break in the conversation is the best moment for the leader of the call to suggest that people refrain from speaking up when someone is talking and to write their thoughts down so they can remember to bring them up when it is their time to speak,” says Landino.
If it seems like the call is going in a different direction than an in-person presentation might have, don’t let it rattle you. “Remember that how you present yourself is the most important,” Landino says. “Be confident and smile. If you can put on the attitude you’d like to see in return, that’s your best chance of not letting it rattle you.”
In lieu of being able to read body language and understand how you’re being received, Bevins says you can solicit feedback in chat via the Zoom app, divide into video breakout rooms, or even have a colleague capture organic ideas with Google Docs.
Keep it concise
People need to stay productive. Some longer meetings are a necessity, but not all meetings should be long; many people in the workforce today complain about the quantity and length of meetings. Landino says that if you’re asking people to join a live call, make sure there’s an important reason. You don’t want people to be asking, ‘Why isn’t this a memo?’ she says.
Headlee says it’s critical to keep meetings as short as possible, and that people have a tendency to talk too long rather than “carefully focusing and distilling” the message down to its main points. “While an audience can stay engaged for up to an hour during an in-person presentation, it’s incredibly rare to keep their attention that long in a video,” she says. “It’s often best to focus on one or two important points that you want to convey.”
Learn and improve
You want to notice your nervous ticks. Pacing around is a common one in-person, but virtually “pacing might become fidgeting or touching your face” a lot, Landino says. “Nervous tendencies convert in different capacities.”
A simple fix might be the most cringeworthy for a lot of people. “I would recommend recording one of the meetings to watch yourself,” says Chai. “You may see a lot of ‘um’s… I used to click my tongue all the time, which I didn’t know about.” Catching yourself in the act might be the easiest way to improve for the next remote call.
Or, if it’s an important presentation and you’re concerned about the new medium, ask a colleague to do a dry run with you and give feedback, says Bevins. They can tell you how you’re coming off on camera, if it’s hard to understand you, or if you’re doing anything distracting.
Bevins says don’t be afraid to make mistakes; presenting remotely is new or underutilized for a lot of people.
“Especially right now with what we’re dealing with, socially isolating, working from home and minimizing spread of COVID-19, we need a little bit of flexibility and some extra patience,” she says. “If something doesn’t go right the first time, it’s okay. There are people out there who can help us out.”
So, she says, try to see it as an opportunity to learn something new.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—15 powerful women share the personality trait that’s key to their success
—Google and Unilever use this new initiative to help family leave implementation
—7 reasons you’re not hearing back about your job applications
—You don’t have to become a manager to grow your career
—WATCH: Can you be a leader and an introvert?
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fortune--2020-03-15--States turn to cash reserves as coronavirus strains budgets

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States across the U.S. are allocating hundreds of millions of dollars to respond to the coronavirus, even as the U.S. government prepares to send billions more their way.
Many states have built up sizable stockpiles in their “rainy day” funds during several robust years of tax collections. Some governors and state lawmakers now are tapping into those savings for emergency expenses. Others are looking to set aside even more in reserve, fearing the economic uncertainties stemming from the coronavirus could send tax revenues into a tailspin.
“Forget the closure on Broadway — the loss of revenue to the state government, right now, is incalculable,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat.
He pulled the curtain on Broadway theaters this past week while banning gatherings of 500 or more people.
President Donald Trump said Friday that he would free up as much as $50 billion for state and local governments as he declared the virus pandemic a national emergency. Many governors also have declared emergencies, giving themselves greater flexibility to spend money and waive regulations as needed.
“All the resources we can have on hand — to make sure if things get worse — we want,” said Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, while announcing a state of emergency just hours after the president did so.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
State and local public health agencies have been on the front lines of the response, monitoring and testing those suspected of having the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease. Costs are mounting for staff time and medical supplies.
But states also are bracing for a potential ripple effect on their revenues. The cancellation of major sporting and entertainment events could mean less tax revenue from tourists and local residents. Directives to work and study at home instead of at offices, schools and colleges could mean less revenue from fuel taxes and public transit fares. And if some employees can’t go to work, that could put a damper on state income and withholding taxes while driving up spending for public welfare programs such as unemployment insurance and state Medicaid health care programs.
“It definitely has the potential to have a significant impact on state budgets — both on the spending and revenue side,” said Brian Sigritz, director of state fiscal studies at the National Association of State Budget Officers.
“One positive, if you want to use that word, is that this is coming after a period where states have seen strong revenue growth for the past couple of years … and have been able to increase the size of their rainy day funds and reserves,” Sigritz added.
Across all states last fiscal year, the median rainy day fund balance equaled 7.6% of general fund expenditures. That’s a record high that was way up from a 1.6% share of general fund expenditures in the 2010 fiscal year, according to the budget officers group.
In Washington state, which has seen the greatest number of U.S. coronavirus deaths, lawmakers this past week approved a budget that draws $200 million from the state’s rainy day fund. Of that, $175 million is to go to the public health system with the rest going to a special unemployment fund for affected businesses and workers.
“The urgency of this is clear, the demand for action is clear, and we’ll stretch this as far as we can and we’ll find some way to finance more if we have to,” said Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat.
While tapping the emergency fund, Washington state lawmakers also pared back some proposed spending, allowing the state’s reserves to continue to grow in case the coronavirus causes more budgetary hardships.
Georgia lawmakers this past week approved shifting $100 million from the state’s $2.8 billion of reserves into a governor’s emergency fund for the coronavirus. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, signed legislation allowing the state to tap up to $50 million from its rainy day fund.
The spread of the coronavirus has coincided with crunch time in some state legislatures. Florida lawmakers, for example, extended their 60-day session that was scheduled to end Friday while working on a budget plan that has been complicated by the coronavirus outbreak. Concern about the economy has prompted budget writers to consider adding hundreds of millions of additional dollars to the state’s reserves to help offset any potential shortfalls.
Some states where legislatures already had wrapped up budgets are now scrambling to account for the coronavirus costs.
New Mexico lawmakers adjourned Feb. 20. This past week, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham vetoed about $150 million in infrastructure spending as coronavirus concerns caused world oil prices to plunge. The oil sector is a mainstay of the New Mexico economy.
The cuts included nearly $50 million for local transportation projects plus funding for a rural water system, a preschool and senior center at Native American communities, and improvements at district courts.