Microsoft Corp on Wednesday beat Wall Street sales and profit expectations, powered by sharp demand for its Teams chat and online meeting app and Xbox gaming services as the world shifted to working and playing from home because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Tesla Inc's outspoken CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday called sweeping U.S. stay-at-home restrictions to curtail the coronavirus outbreak "fascist" as the electric carmaker posted its third quarterly profit in a row.
SoftBank Group Corp said it sees a loss of around 700 billion yen ($6.6 billion) in the year ending March on the portion of its WeWork investment held outside the Vision Fund, extending the group's expected net loss to 900 billion yen.
Tyson Foods Inc is halting operations at a beef facility in Dakota City, Nebraska until May 4 to complete a deep cleaning of the plant amid the coronavirus outbreak, a unit of the largest U.S. meat supplier said on Wednesday.
Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd's administrators have halted payments to bondholders and appointed Morgan Stanley to help sell the airline within four months, said a participant in a meeting of creditors owed nearly A$7 billion ($4.58 billion).
Silicon Valley billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg offered dueling views on lockdown measures designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus on Wednesday, with Facebook's Zuckerberg endorsing the measures while Tesla's Musk condemned them as anti-democratic.
Asian stocks rose to a fresh seven-week high on Thursday, lifted by encouraging early results from a COVID-19 treatment trial, though bonds and currencies held cautious ranges ahead of a European Central Bank meeting later in the day.
Standard Chartered PLC said on Wednesday its first-quarter profit tumbled 12%, as the emerging markets-focused bank boosted provisions against bad loans as the coronavirus crisis hammers its borrowers.
The U.S. economy likely contracted in the first quarter at its sharpest pace since the Great Recession as stringent measures to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus almost shut down the country, ending the longest expansion in the nation's history.
Novartis on Wednesday won a new European approval for its inflammation drug Cosentyx in a form of arthritis, as the Swiss drugmaker predicts broadening use of its top-selling medicine will eventually push annual sales beyond $5 billion.
Volkswagen on Wednesday said it expected to be profitable on a full-year basis even as the coronavirus pandemic caused first-quarter earnings to plunge.
Daimler said it expected the operating profit of its Mercedes-Benz Cars & Vans division to be above the prior-year level, even as the corona pandemic forced the Stuttgart-based car and trucks maker to abandon its outlook earlier this month.
Planemaker Airbus on Wednesday posted a 49% slump in first-quarter adjusted operating profit to 281 million euros ($304.7 million) as revenue dropped 15% to 10.631 billion euros amid the "gravest crisis the aerospace industry has ever known".
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Wednesday it expected profit to decline in the current quarter due to a coronavirus-related slump in sales of smartphones and TVs, although the chip business would remain solid.
Garbage haulers still collect trash. Cops are on the beat. Couriers deliver food and packages. Insurance agents work from home.