Global markets rise despite American protests.
Global markets rose on Monday despite jitters over the violence in the United States, as investors looked to further signs of recovery from the coronavirus and a lack of major retaliation from the United States in its dispute with China over the fate of Hong Kong.
Stocks in London and Paris were more than 1 percent higher in early Monday trading, though markets in Germany and a number of other countries were closed for a holiday. Asian markets rose strongly, paced by an increase of more than 3 percent in Hong Kong and more than 2 percent in mainland China shares.
Despite the unrest in the United States, futures markets were indicating Wall Street would open modestly higher.
Investors were cheered by results from surveys of purchasing managers around the world, which showed uneven but steady progress in recovering from the coronavirus outbreak. They also saw President Trump’s response on Friday to China’s efforts to take a heavier hand in Hong Kong’s affairs as less severe than it could have been. Mr. Trump said the United States would begin rolling back the special trade and financial status it grants to the former British colony but left many of the details unsaid.
Markets did not totally dismiss the problems in the United States. Prices for U.S. Treasury bonds were mixed, and the American dollar slipped in value compared with other major currencies.
For all the pain that the virus has caused the 25,000 or so who live in Bernal Heights, a dense little neighborhood built around a grassy hill in the south of San Francisco, it has also brought them together as a community — a pattern that is playing out in neighborhoods around the country.
Neighbors have formed a small newspaper for children. Socially distanced street dance parties and cocktail hours have taken over, block by block, as the sun sets. Some people have created a new micro-social safety net, turning bookshelves into sidewalk food banks and garages into medical-supply distribution centers. Email lists and text chains for each block are buzzing.
And as sheltering in place eases, some of the changes in Bernal Heights are turning permanent.
“The scale of life has changed,†said Francesca Russello Ammon, an associate professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania. “Your world has shrunk. The neighborhood and the block become really important.â€
When Ryan Stagg, 27, started baking bread for his neighbors in a one-bedroom apartment on Wright Street, he offered it for free, dangling each loaf in a basket, over the fence and down to the sidewalk.
But he and his fiancée, Daniella Banchero, were both out of work, and their landlord was unwilling to reduce their rent, so they started to charge $9 for a big sourdough loaf and expanded the menu, adding cinnamon rolls ($3), cookies ($2) and crumb cakes.
Recently, they have started using a commercial kitchen in a restaurant that’s been shuttered. And they applied to start a proper registered business: The Bernal Bakery.
There is widespread agreement that the United States economy will soon begin to recover from coronavirus lockdowns. The big debate is whether that rebound will resemble a V, a W, an L or a Nike Swoosh.
Increasingly, economists and analysts are penciling in another glyph: a question mark, writes Jeanna Smialek.
Forecasters often label their expectations for a post-recession rebound with letters — a “V†suggests a rapid recovery, a “W†a double-dip, and so on — but that’s hard to do this time around. As all 50 states begin to open up and consumers trickle out of their homes, the path ahead is wildly uncertain, making prognostication dicey.
It isn’t just Wall Street forecasters eschewing the alphabet in favor of a range of what-if’s. From the Federal Reserve to the White House, analysts have suggested that posing confident prognostications is probably more misleading than helpful. John C. Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said during an appearance last week that it was important for policymakers to prepare for every eventuality, rather than focus on one type of recovery.
Looking to donate? Here are some ways to quickly get money to those in need.
What is the very best way for people with more money than they need to quickly hand it over to those in need, so they can use it for food, shelter and other necessities?
It isn’t easy to find a satisfying answer. Sites and services like GoFundMe can connect donors with real people, but they may lack vetting of recipients, their back stories or their plans. Donors with large amounts to give may want to use tax deductions to increase what they can afford to donate, but may not be able to get them through one-off cash transfers.
The elusiveness of perfect solutions has inspired a variety of social entrepreneurs to pursue various forms of direct giving. If you’ve sent money via DonorsChoose to help a teacher pay for a classroom project, you get the basic idea: Give a little money, know exactly where it’s going, have some sense of who’s getting it and have someone between you and the recipient to provide at least some verification.
Two existing organizations and one new entrant are offering some of the most satisfying ways of providing few-strings-attached assistance. Modest Needs Foundation and GiveDirectly, both nonprofit organizations, are using years of experience to pay people’s bills or hand them money to pay for things themselves. And the 1K Project is facilitating money transfers, although without the tax deductions the other two can offer donors.
GiveDirectly partnered with Propel, a company that helps recipients of SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program once known as food stamps) manage their benefits. They receive a message at random offering the money, a bit like a lottery that they don’t have to enter.
Catch up: Here’s what else is happening.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced sweeping new recommendations on the safest way for American employers to reopen their offices to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The recommendations include: checking temperatures as employees arrive at work, spacing desks six feet apart, and requiring masks. Suggestions run from technical advice on ventilation systems (more open windows are most desirable) to suggested abolition of communal perks like latte makers and snack bins.
Reporting was contributed by Matt Richtel, Ron Lieber, Nellie Bowles, Carlos Tejada and Jeanna Smialek.
