Putin Says Russia Is Willing to Join Oil Production Cuts: Live Updates

April 03, 2020
Business

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has retained Pacific Investment Management Company, known as PIMCO, to run a program meant to calm the market for short-term business debt.

PIMCO managed a similar program during the 2008 financial crisis.

The investment manager has been retained on a short-term basis for “its knowledge and experience in the commercial paper market and in credit risk management and its operational and technological capabilities,” according to the New York Fed. State Street Bank Trust Company will act as custodian.

PIMCO has many connections at the central bank. Richard H. Clarida, the Fed vice chair, formerly worked at the company. Ben S. Bernanke, who was Fed chair during the Great Recession, is now a senior adviser.

The New York Fed is in charge of running several of the Fed’s emergency lending programs, which it has been unveiling since mid-March in a bid to calm troubled markets. It has previously announced that it will appoint BlackRock to set up other programs related to longer-term corporate debt.

The Treasury Department is also tapping Wall Street to help roll out its programs.

At a news conference on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he picked PJT Partners, Moelis and Perella Weinberg Partners to serve as outside advisers.

PJT will be focused on the airlines, Moelis will focus on cargo carriers and Perella Weinberg will concentrate on other companies, such as Boeing. Mr. Mnuchin said that the firms would be charging the rate they use for work for charities, and the contracts would be made public.

Catch up: Here’s what else is happening.

Grupo Modelo, the brewer behind Corona, Modelo and other beers, said in a statement on Thursday that it was suspending its beer production after the Mexican government ordered nonessential businesses to close in an attempt to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Hobby Lobby, which had defied stay-at-home orders by opening some stores, said it would close the remainder of its stores at 8 p.m. on Friday. The retailer also said it would furlough most of its employees without pay.
The sportswear giant Under Armour said Friday that it was laying off 6,700 employees that work in its retail stores as well as some in its distribution centers, beginning April 12. Employees who continue to work at the distribution center will receive bonuses. Under Armour had been struggling well before the coronavirus crisis.
Google said in a blog post early Friday that it was using the data it collects about where people go to help governments and public health officials evaluate the effectiveness of policies — like sheltering in place and working from home — that are intended to thin crowds in public places. It said it was publishing “mobility reports” for 131 countries based on aggregated and anonymized location data from Google Maps users to show recent changes in travel patterns.

Reporting was contributed by Michael Corkery, Nelson D. Schwartz, Patricia Cohen, Alan Rappeport, Stanley Reed, Peter Eavis, Andrew E. Kramer, Rachel Abrams, Tiffany Hsu, Niraj Chokshi, David Gelles, Daisuke Wakabayashi, Keith Bradsher, Jim Tankersley, Julie Creswell, Mohammed Hadi, Carlos Tejada and Daniel Victor.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/business/stock-market-today-coronavirus.html