Debt. Joining us to discuss is a high veteran, Lehmann Livian Fridson Advisors chief Investment Officer martin fridson. I want to talk about this wave of downgrades we have had. Yet, itenomenal, and seems like we have not reached the apex. Do you anticipate more double and triple downgrades . Martin i think we will see that continue for some time. If is such a dramatic change in environment, it is taking a while to get through all the companies, but in addition to aat, some Companies Just had light switch turning off kind of change. Historically, you have some finance companies go down quickly if they lost their ability to borrow, they could sell quickly. Industrial companies historically have taken a long time to make the migration that we observed recently. 1100 basis points around march 23, and then we had a bit of easing. What do you see in terms of levels, spread wise, and default wise . Martin default will clearly rise. Defaults will clearly rise. We think double digits. The high
Virus could soon peak in new york city. Weve already seen the apex in madrid italy is clearly over the hump that means buy storks. Cover your shorts. The bull is backs todays run d 1627 points marking its best day in two weeks s p soaring 7. 03 . Nasdaq 7. 3 . Can it really be this easy or does this represent too much optimism i think its a bit of the latter wall street is a group of index buyers and traders when we care about the new number of coronavirus cases, number of hospitalizations and mortality rate index buying was so intense it moved stocks like they were play things now, does that mean we should buy the nasdaq when we have more ventilators, sell it if we dont have enough personal protective equipment . Do we buy the s p retail etf when we get a decent number from, i dont know, Governor Cuomo . No, its kind of ridiculous. Were simply seeing, though, the flip side of what happens when people were downbeat as they were last week when the president s team told us some pretty ho
Consumerfacing businesses and both are on the move in the afterhours session and we have Team Coverage to break down both of these reports and lets kick things off with csx with the call now under way and lets get to Frank Holland with the details. Melissa, shares of csx up, and something weve seen in a number of other companies and one of its competitors, union pacific. On that call the ceo says production demand was too hard to forecast in this covid19 environment. Also during the call the cfo kevin boone said the Company Raised 500 million in debt and the Company Believes it is in position for a potential recovery and maintaining a strong cash reserve. Our Liquidity Position is extremely strong with nearly 2. 5 billion of cash and shortterm investments at the end of march this represents multiples of what we would consider normal, targeted cash levels cash may be strong, but volumes are weaker year over year to start q2 its been seen in the three weeks since the First Quarter ended
This is a new york pandemic which frankly with the great chart the Johns Hopkins is doing and john von murdoch is doing, new york is essentially the mathematics of catalonia. Francine yes, and the mathematics of milan just outside of that. You wonder if we shouldve started preparing for this as far as resources and getting hand sanitizers and much needed medical equipment earlier. There is a pattern and we have charts charting that. Wuhan and in china in then the epicenter was italy and it is slowly moving to other countries that will have to deal with similar fatalities. Tom some doing better, others less so as well. The economic ramifications to be very clear, worldwide in the last 24 hours, the news in economic america is the furloughs to come. We saw that yesterday with a vengeance from retail. Right now, with our first word news, here is viviana hurtado. Viviana the mathematics of the human toll in spain. Yet. D its deadliest day fatalities,ing 849 bringing the death toll almost 8
Of yesterdays huge gains. We are near the lows with the tou down about i8 0 points we went lower as the ten year yield hits a fresh record low as kelly just reported. Braeg i breaking below 1 for the First Time Ever now at 0. 972 . Lets get to Steve Liesman for the more on the feds emergency rate cut thanks very much. The historic 50 basis cut emergency cut, the first since the financial crisis, not greeted warmly by the market critics condemning the rate cut bringing the rate cut to a new range. Wont do much good to combat the economic effects of the virus u. Hfe writing they dont believe its constructive in the supply shock induced by the coronavirus outbreak and responses to it jay powell in his press conference pushed back against the criticism. We do recognize that a rate cut will not reduce the rate of infection, wont fix a broken supply chain we get that. But we believe our action will provide a meaningful boost to the economy. More specifically, it will support accommodative Fi