Shake Shack said it would return a small business loan it received from the U.S. government as part of covid-19 relief package. The fast casual restaurant chain was able to get extra funding late last week through an equity transaction,  and decided to immediately return the $10 million paycheck protection loan it received through the CARES Act, (the Associated Press reported). CEO Randy Garutti and founder Danny Meyer said, “Shake Shack was fortunate last Friday to be able to access the additional capital we needed to ensure our long term stability through an equity transaction in the public markets”.They added, “We’re thankful for that and we’ve decided to immediately return the entire $10 million PPP loan we received last week so that those restaurants who need it most can get it now”.

The facility is apparently for general corporate purposes, as indicated in the filing. Disney had earlier announced plans to furlough certain non-essential U.S. employees starting April 19.The company asked them to apply for the additional $600 a week of federal support as part of the U.S. government's $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package.

Gilead Sciences shares got downgraded by BMO Capital and Wells Fargo analysts. BMO Capital's Matthew Luchini slashed his rating on the bitotech company’s stock to market perform from outperform. Luchini re-iterated his price target at $79. While Luchini thinks that  Gilead’s anti-COVID-19 drug remdesivir is encouraging,  he also mentions   "continued uncertainty around the remdesivir commercial opportunity," .

In the week ending April 11, an additional 5.245 million initial unemployment insurance claims were filed in the US, as the US economy continues to get crushed by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the April 11 week jobless claims were lower than the 5.803 million in claims expected by analysts polled by FactSet.Over the past month, nearly 22 million jobless claims were filed, the highest on record. Continuing jobless claims  was 11.9 million for the latest reported week. Several analysts and economists expect job losses in April to be as high as 20 million, which would translate into a jobless rate of around 15%.

Abbott Laboratories  said  that it’s expecting to send out 4 million of its new coronavirus antibody test kits this month. The test is designed to reveal whether a person had been infected with covid-19 and whether he or she is now asymptomatic or recovered.  “It’s clear that the demand for testing is big; it’s not going to go away.” Abbott Chief Executive Robert Ford said during an earnings conference call Thursday.Ford also mentioned in the call that the company plans to increase its shipments to 20 million a month starting June. While Abbott has already introduced three coronavirus tests in the U.S., Ford indicated that a fourth one is underway.

Banks might be the first in line to seize the $1,200 coronavirus pandemic relief checks,  according to a news report.  The American Prospect emphasized that Congress did not exempt Cares Act payments from private debt collection – which means, banks have the power to  use the transferred checks to settle consumers’ delinquent loan or past-due fees.  Congress exempted individuals from debt collection only if the debt is owed to federal or state agencies, unless the debt involves a child-support payment.   

 According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), COVID-19 crisis is likely to push the global economy into  the worst recession since the Great Depression. “It is very likely that this year the global economy will experience its worst recession since the Great Depression, surpassing that seen during the global financial crisis a decade ago,” said IMF Economic Counsellor Gita Gopinath, in the latest World Economic Outlook report.  The U.S economy is predicted to contract by -5.9 percent. However, IMF also mentioned that if the coronavirus pandemic subsides in the second half of 2020 and if effective policy actions are taken around the globe, the global economic growth will rebound to 5.8 percent next year. 

 Credit Suisse analyst Dan Levy boosted his price target for Tesla shares to $580 from $415, citing  that Tesla has “more edge” in terms of electric vehicles’ potential to replace conventional ones. Levy suggested that the Covid-19 crisis makes it even more challenging for traditional vehicle makers to balance the long-term shift to electric vehicles. According to Levy, declining demand and possible supply shortfalls were short-term risks for Tesla. Nevertheless, the analyst feels that Tesla leads its rivals in battery development,  has displayed increase in liquidity and improvements in execution.

Google  and Apple  are teaming up on developing a mobile software that would help track the spread of coronavirus. On Friday, the technology behemoths announced that they are working on an  opt-in tool for Android and iOS, where the tool will tell people if they have been in contact with someone who was had contracted coronavirus. The feature will also allow users report to a public health agency if they have been infected.  The tool is expected to launch within a few months

Gilead Sciences  announced a successful clinical trial of its antiviral drug to treat the coronavirus . “The majority of patients in this international cohort demonstrated clinical improvement and no new safety signals were identified with remdesivir treatment,” Gilead said in a statement.  "We cannot draw definitive conclusions from these data, but the observations from this group of hospitalized patients who received remdesivir are hopeful," Jonathan Grein, director of hospital epidemiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, and lead author of the NEJM article, mentioned in the company’s statement. The drug hasn’t been yet approved for general use by the Food and Drug Administration.  

Tesla  lowered the starting price for its Model 3 sedans by 16% to 299,050 yuan ($42,919) after government rebates, amid coronavirus pandemic. The subsidy amounts to 24,750 yuan ($3,552) per vehicle. The price in China for imported Model 3s is 439,900 yuan ($63,133) before subsidies. Telsa’s car registrations in China have declined for two straight months, according to Bloomberg. The company started operating at a factory in Shanghai in January, and the facility is the electric carmaker’s  only plant outside the U.S.

The Federal Reserve launched an additional $2.3 trillion in lending program for small and mid-size US businesses as well as local governments, to support the economy amid COVID-19 pandemic. On Thursday, the US central bank announced that it will pump upto $600 billion into small and mid-size companies, as part of its Main Street lending facility.Loans will be directed towards businesses with upto 10,000 employees or less than $2.5 billion in revenue. The Fed will also directly inject up to $500 billion into local governments, by directly buying municipal bonds with up to two year’s duration.

 Gould also slashed his price target on the stock to $1 a share (from $4) – which  represents 68% downside from the stock's Tuesday closing price.  In mid-March, AMC shut 1,000 of its theaters with some 11,000 screens , for six to 12 weeks.It recently told landlords that it will stop paying rent.  In April, The Wall Street Journal,  citing people familiar with the matter, reported that lenders to AMC had sought services of the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher for advice on expected restructuring discussions. Gould projected negative cash flow of -$285 million in the first half of the year for AMC, and indicated that  the coronavirus crisis could lead to some liquidity issues at the company.

Wells Fargo  got its capital constraints relaxed by the Federal Reserve, so the bank can boost lending to small businesses amid COVID-19 crisis. Last weekend, Wells  had capped its lending to small business to $10 billion under the Paycheck Protection Program.The threshold was set by the bank so it could maintain the asset requirement that the Fed had imposed on it February 2018 after finding it guilty of setting up unauthorized accounts.   “Due to the extraordinary disruptions from the coronavirus,” the Fed said in a statement, “it will temporarily and narrowly modify the growth restriction on Wells Fargo so that it can provide additional support to small businesses.”

Amazon.com is reportedly putting its  delivery service business on hold . According to a Wall Street Journal report, the e-commerce behemoth will not operate its Amazon Shipping  starting in June, in order to focus on online orders amid the coronavirus outbreak. Amazon's foray into the delivery sector had apparently led to FedEx terminating its contract to deliver packages for the online retailer last August. Even with lower rates, Amazon Shipping, since its  launch two years ago, struggled to gain customers beyond its own delivery purposes, J.P. Morgan analyst Brian Ossenbeck mentioned in a note to clients.Ossenbeck arges that Amazon’s halting of its delivery business will give a bigger boost to FedEx than UPS.  

 Everyone else in the company will receive a salary cut of 10%, according to an internal email (as reported by TheStreet). The pay reductions are expected to remain through to the end of June.(as reported by TheStreet). Tesla is running "minimum critical operations" at present, and expects to go back to full operations at U.S. plants in early May  unless there are any significant changes, as indicated in the email.

On Friday, it withdrew its first-quarter and full-year earnings guidance. In January, Dan Ninivaggi, who used to run Icahn Automotive Group and also is a shareholder in Tenneco through his Protean Services firm, demanded that half of Tenneco’s board be replaced.He also suggested that Tenneco should raise cash - to make good on its debt - by selling its aftermarket-parts unit or by selling the entire company.  The next day, Tenneco dropped co-CEO Roger Wood.  

The Saudi sovereign investment fund has 8.2% stake in Carnival Corp. The cruise line now has Saudi Public Investment Fund as its third largest stakeholder. The investment fund's stake in the company is valued at nearly $370 million. The fund did not own any Carnival share as of its fourth-quarter SEC filing. Recently, Carnival increased its dollar-bond offering to $4 billion from $3 billion, while reducing  its interest rate for the bonds to about 12% from 12.5%.This corresponds to the company’s decision to drop a euro-denominated tranche (according to Bloomberg citing sources familiar with the matter).

Walt Disney Co.   is holding off releases of several upcoming movies, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Release dates of the entertainment behemoth’s  movies will be moved to later dates this year and into 2021 and 2022 as well (according to a Variety report).  “Black Widow,” “Jungle Cruise,” “Bob’s Burger," “The Eternals,” “Mulan,” “The New Mutants,” “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”, "Thor: Love and Thunder", and “Captain Marvel 2” are among the movies that got postponed for release. The coronavirus situation has compelled  movie theaters to shut down and film companies to halt production until the virus get contained.  

The figure represents the largest monthly job losses since March 2009.  leisure and hospitality accounted for almost two-thirds of the job losses, concentrated in food services and drinking places.Other industries that shed jobs significantly included healthcare and social assistance, professional and business services, retail trade, and construction The full-month unemployment rate could be even worse, since the recent data reflects developments up to March 21 - before states began implementing non-essential shutdowns of business . On Thursday, it was revealed that the initial jobless claims in the US was 6.6 million in the week ended March 28, which is almost double the new claims made just a week earlier.