Markets up as economies begin to reopen around the world

AP/Houston Chronicle:

Global stock prices gained Monday after Japan’s central bank boosted support for financial markets as more governments prepared to reopen economies that were shut down to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Tokyo's benchmark surged 2.7% and European markets opened higher. Shanghai, Hong Kong and Sydney also gained.

Investors are looking ahead to meetings of U.S. and European central bankers this week for additional measures to reverse the deepest global slump since the 1930s. Evidence is mounting that the damage is even worse than expected.

The Bank of Japan said it will inject money into the financial system by purchasing an additional 15 trillion yen ($140 billion) of commercial paper and bank loans. The bank also scrapped its ceiling on purchases of government debt.

Investors appear to be looking past the outbreak to figure out which companies can survive and prosper after conditions improve.

China, where the pandemic began in December, has reopened factories and other businesses after numbers of new cases declined. Spain plans to start easing restrictions Sunday and Italy on May 4. France will announce its plans next month.

Hopes for a return to normal “should see markets such as equities outperform this week," said Jeffrey Halley of Oanda in a report.

In London, the FTSE 100 opened up 1.4% at 5,831.26 and Germany's DAX gained 2.1% to 10,547.26. The CAC 40 in France added 1.6% to 4,464.07.

On Wall Street, the futures for the benchmark S&P 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.9%.
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The markets appear to be rejecting the Democrats' policy of continued lockdowns.  I suspect the Democrats are pushing that policy in hopes of having Trump be unable to run on reviving the current US economy.

The Middle East economies which are dependent on the oil and gas market are still taking a hit.

Iraq is planning painful cuts in social benefits relied on by millions of government workers. Saudi Arabia will likely have to delay mega-projects. Egypt and Lebanon face a blow as their workers in the Gulf send back less of the much-needed dollars that help keep their fragile economies afloat.

The historic crash in oil prices in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic is reverberating across the Middle East as crude-dependent countries scramble to offset losses from a key source of state revenue — and all this at a time when several of them already face explosive social unrest.
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Russia appears to lack the resources to revive its own economy.

Desperate business owners in Russia have been pleading with the Kremlin for help in the pandemic shutdown. The response, however, has been slow and largely focused on big industries, leaving most smaller companies to fend for themselves and raising the prospect of massive unemployment and social unrest.

The Kremlin’s anti-crisis measures reflect both its long-held emphasis on state-controlled companies and a fear of opening state coffers at a time when government revenue is drying up due to a plunge in oil prices and economic slump.

When President Vladimir Putin ordered most Russians to stay home through April 30 to contain the coronavirus, he said employees must continue to be paid. A joke soon went viral online: “Putin walks into a bar and declares: ‘Beer for everyone. It’s on the house!’”
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The Russian joke sounds like something the AOC said in her own response to the virus.