Coronavirus live updates: Facing ‘worst crisis since 1929,’ JPMorgan giving some $1,000 bonus

FAN Editor

This is CNBC’s live blog covering all the latest news on the coronavirus outbreak. All times below are in Eastern time. This blog will be updated throughout the day as the news breaks. 

  • Global cases: More than 245,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
  • Global deaths: At least 10,031, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
  • US cases: At least 14,250, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
  • US deaths: At least 205, according to the CDC and state health officials.

10:30 am: IRS will move tax filing deadline to July 15, Mnuchin says

The IRS will move the national income tax filing day ahead to July 15, three months after the normal deadline for Americans to send in their returns.

The move announced by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is the latest in a series of highly unusual, emergency measures to deal with the financial fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mnuchin said the extension ordered by President Donald Trump will give “all taxpayers and business this additional time” to file returns and make tax payments “without interest or penalties.” —Dan Mangan, Darla Mercado

10:28 am: JC Penney yanks its earnings outlook

J.C. Penney has withdrawn its earnings outlook due to the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19.

The department store chain announced Friday morning that it is not providing an updated outlook at this time.

Earlier in the week, on Wednesday, Penney said it would close all of its stores across the country until April 2, at least, to try to help halt the spread of the new coronavirus. It did not clarify whether or not it would be paying workers during this time. A spokesperson declined to comment.

Penney is also postponing its analyst day, which had been set for April 7, until future notice. —Lauren Thomas

10:26 am: Restaurateur Danny Meyer: It’s going to take a month to recruit our team back and train them

Famed restaurateur Danny Meyer told CNBC that it’s going to take a while for restaurants to reopen once the coronavirus pandemic has slowed.

“It’s going to take a good month or so to recruit our teams back and to get train them, trained before we could serve like we used to,” Meyer said on “Squawk on the Street.”

Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group laid off about 2,000 workers on Wednesday. —Kevin Stankiewicz

10:20 am: Analyst anticipates ‘worst crisis since 1929’ amid fears of a global recession

People gathering on Wall Street in front of the New York Stock Exchange, October 25, 1929.

Ullstein bild | Getty Images

Financial markets are facing their worst crisis since 1929, a veteran analyst has told CNBC, as top economists downgrade their forecasts to point to an impending global recession.

Fears over the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic have sent global markets into a tailspin, and though stocks across Europe, the U.S., and Asia looked to be heading for some welcome reprieve on Friday, Stephen Isaacs, chairman of the investment committee at Alvine Capital Management, told CNBC that having entered the crisis with “record levels of leverage” and record levels of overbought stocks, the situation was “unprecedented.”

“We came into this with all sorts of problems hiding within the momentum of a massive bull market, which again leads me to feel extremely concerned that the selling is only abating temporarily, and that we are still looking, unfortunately at a very, very difficult situation,” Isaacs told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.” —Elliott Smith

10:15 am: YouTube and Netflix are cutting streaming quality in Europe due to lockdowns

YouTube and Netflix are reducing streaming quality in Europe as more countries and regions enter lockdown to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

The move is intended to help the internet run smoothly as traffic spikes due to more people in the region being forced to stay at home.

Google subsidiary YouTube said it was “making a commitment to temporarily switch all traffic in the EU to standard definition by default” in a media statement on Friday. It said the move would be for a preliminary period of 30 days. —Chloe Taylor

10:03 am: Even if you’re working from home, your employer is still watching

Carlina Teteris | Getty Images

The continued spread of COVID-19 is forcing millions of Americans to work from home. As many workers shift to a new reality, they and their managers may be concerned about staying as productive as possible.

Although it may be tempting to slack off work when stuck inside the comfort of your home, proceed with caution — your boss could be watching.

About half of large companies use some type of nontraditional monitoring techniques to keep tabs on their employees, including methods like analyzing texts of emails and social media messages and gathering biometric data, according to a survey from the research and advisory company Gartner in 2018. The company surveyed 239 large corporations. CNBC’s Make It details some of the ways employers may be keeping tabs on you. —Karina Hernandez

9:54 am: Amazon AWS launches $20 million initiative

Amazon AWS is setting aside an initial $20 million to help accelerate research and development of diagnostic solutions. That includes, but won’t be limited to, helping push forward a more accurate, faster coronavirus COVID-19 test.

Amazon specifies that the program, called the AWS Diagnostic Development Initiative, is open to accredited research institutions and private entities that are AWS customers. At launch, the program includes 35 global research institutions, startups, and businesses. It’ll also be supported by an outside technical advisory group made up of “leading scientists, global health policy experts, and thought leaders” who specialize in infectious disease diagnostics.

It hopes to focus these resources specifically on AWS customers that are working on point-of-care diagnostics, or testing that can be done at home or at a clinic with same-day results. —Christina Farr, Annie Palmer

9:50 am: JPMorgan is giving tellers, other ‘front-line’ employees a $1,000 bonus

JPMorgan Chase said it was giving bank tellers and other “front-line employees” a one-time bonus of up to $1,000 to help cushion the difficulties of working during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Many of our front line employees in our branches, operations and call centers, and other key sites who continue to go into their office or branch each day face particular challenges related to issues like childcare and transportation,” the bank said in a Friday memo to employees.

“To help them meet these challenges and to recognize their ongoing commitment to our customers, clients, and communities, we will make a one-time COVID-19 special payment equal to a maximum of US$1,000 (not to exceed 10% of salary/regular pay or fixed pay in certain countries).” —Hugh Son

9:29 am: Coca-Cola withdraws 2020 outlook

A man walks past shelves of Coca-Cola bottles and cans at a shopping mall in Lagos, Nigeria November 5, 2019.

Temilade Adelaja | Reuters

Coca-Cola on Friday said that it does not expect to meet its outlook for 2020 due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Around the world, sporting events and concerts have been canceled, movie theaters and restaurants have been closed, and people are working from home. Those initiatives to promote social distancing, along with currency fluctuations, are expected to hit Coke’s business, according to a regulatory filing.

Coke previously forecast that 2020 organic revenue would grow by 5% and adjusted earnings per share would increase by 7% to $2.25.

Coke said it cannot estimate the blow to its business at this time, although it “could be material.” The company said that it expects to provide an update when it reports its first-quarter earnings. —Amelia Lucas

9:22 am: Hopes are high for a treatment, which could come much quicker than a vaccine

Scientists around the globe are racing to develop tests, treatments, and vaccines to combat the COVID-19 disease.

Near term, tests are the priority. Beyond testing, regulators are trying to get treatments approved as quickly and safely as possible to serve as a bridge to a vaccine, which is likely to take 12 months, according to the U.S. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn.

Health-care experts broadly agree that a treatment is likely to come before a vaccine. “If a good treatment emerges, whatever it is, we expect regulators to prioritize expeditious review,” Laura Sutcliffe, a UBS health-care analyst said in a research note. —Julianna Tatelbaum

9:15 am: How one elite New York medical provider got its patients tested

As U.S. authorities scrambled to ramp up the nation’s capacity to test for coronavirus last week, at least 100 executives and other New Yorkers of means had easy access to testing, according to two sources familiar with the activities of a little-known medical service catering to the affluent.

These people paid a $5,000-a-year membership fee for a medical concierge service in New York City called Sollis Health, which worked with Enzo Clinical Labs Inc to test its members for COVID-19, according to the sources.

The arrangement gave members, which include people in finance, entertainment, advertising, and media industries, access to the tests at home at a time New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state had the capacity to test just a few hundred patients a day. The two sources declined to provide the identities of the people the company tested for coronavirus and Reuters could not establish them. —Reuters

9:00 am: GameStop considers itself ‘essential retail,’ tells stores to stay open

GameStop told its stores to stay open even in the event of state or city lockdowns in response to the coronavirus outbreak, according to a memo obtained by gaming website Kotaku. The memo said the videogame retailer considered itself an “essential retail” operation. —Peter Schacknow

8:18 am: US cases cross 14,000

8:06 am: China economy normalizing after coronavirus peaked

A staff worker wearing a protective mask and protective suit checks a visitor’s body temperature with a temperature gun by a monitor showing the current stock information at the Shanghai Stock Exchange Building on March 20, 2020 in Shanghai, China. Health authorities of China said the country has passed the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic on March 12.

Yifan Ding

China’s economy is beginning to show some signs of normalization following the full-blown shock caused by the coronavirus, but stark risks remain, International Monetary Fund officials said in a blog on the economic impact of the pandemic.

Most larger Chinese firms have reopened and many local employees have returned to work, but infections could rise again as national and international travel resumes, the IMF officials said.

Outbreaks in other countries and financial market gyrations could make consumers and firms wary of Chinese goods just as the economy is getting back to work, they said. —Reuters

8:00 am: Germany locks down Bavaria

The German state of Bavaria will impose general restrictions on going outside for two weeks, state premier Markus Soeder said. “It’s not easy to take these decisions,” Soeder said. “We take these decisions according to the best of our knowledge and conscience. There will be a Bavaria after corona, but it will be a stronger one if we don’t look away.” —Reuters

7:43 am: Upcoming job losses will be unlike anything the US has ever seen

When the damage the coronavirus inflicts on the U.S. jobs market becomes clearer, it could be unlike anything the country has ever seen.

Judging by a host of forecasts from economists, the avalanche of furloughs will easily break the record for most in a single month.

Upcoming weekly jobless claims will shatter the standards set even during the worst points of the financial crisis and the early-1980s recession. Those numbers are expected to be bad, in fact, that the Trump administration, according to several media reports, has asked state officials to delay releasing precise counts.

While the headline unemployment rate is highly unlikely to approach the 24.9% during the Great Depression, it very well could be the highest in almost 40 years, something unthinkable for a jobs market that had been on fire as recently as February. —Jeff Cox

7:32 am: New Orleans Saints coach Payton says he tested positive

Head coach Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints looks on against the Carolina Panthers in the second quarter during their game at Bank of America Stadium on December 17, 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Grant Halverson | Getty Images

New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton says he has tested positive for the coronavirus, is resting comfortably at home and is making his test result public in hopes he can motivate people to do more to fight the pandemic.

Payton learned Thursday that he has tested positive for the coronavirus, he told ESPN before posting a photo of himself smiling as he sat on a couch next to his dog.

“Appreciate the well wishes,” Payton wrote on his Twitter page. “I’m feeling better and fortunate to not have any of the respiratory symptoms. 4 more days at home.”

Payton, 56, is the first employee of either an NFL team or the league to make such a diagnosis public. —Associated Press

7:30 am: AT&T hits the brakes on share buyback plan

AT&T just canceled plans to repurchase $4 billion of its own shares, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The company made the move to “focus on continued investment in serving our customers, taking care of our employees and enhancing our network, including nationwide 5G,” according to the filing.

The news follows several days of public outcry from President Donald Trump and several high-profile investors, including Mark Cuban, who said companies that have received government bailouts should not be allowed to buy back their own shares.

AT&T noted in the filing that the impact of the pandemic “could be material,” but the company said it cannot yet estimate the impact on its financial or operational results. —Elisabeth Butler Cordova

7:25 am: Altria CEO Howard Willard has tested positive

Marlboro cigarette maker Altria CEO Howard Willard has contracted coronavirus and is taking temporary medical leave, a regulatory filing showed on Friday.

Willard, 56, is the latest high-profile person to get the virus in a global pandemic that has infected more than 245,000 people and killed over 10,000 globally.

Chief Financial Officer William Gifford Jr will take over for Willard during his absence, the company said here in a memo to employees. —Reuters

7:20 am: Fine-dining restaurants scramble to start delivery as a way to survive

A delivery person wears a protective mask as the coronavirus continues to spread across the United States on March 15, 2020 in New York City.

Cindy Ord | Getty Images

7:14 am: Senate GOP bailout bill caps executive pay

Executives at companies that would receive bailout cash from the coronavirus-relief bill unveiled by Senate Republicans would see their annual compensation capped for two years. According to the language, no employee who makes more than $425,000 may get a raise in their salary for two years. —Lauren Hirsch

7:10 am: Two senators face questions over stock sales

Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC).

Getty Images

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., is facing questions about his decision to sell between $630,000 and $1.7 million worth of stock one week before global financial markets began a historic slide in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

A second Republican senator, Georgia’s Kelly Loeffler, also sold large amounts of stock in late January and early February, when U.S. markets were hitting all-time highs. Both Burr and Loeffler have received non-public information about the global spread of coronavirus from Executive Branch officials, who have been briefing senators regularly since at least January. —Christina Wilkie

7:06 am: Spain’s death toll surpasses 1,000

A tourist wearing a protective mask takes a selfie outside the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona on March 11, 2020 after Spain banned all air traffic from Italy, closed schools and blocked fans from football matches after being caught off-guard by a near tripling of coronavirus infections in less than 48 hours.

Lluis Gene | AFP | Getty Images

Spain’s death toll from the coronavirus epidemic soared to 1,002 on Friday from 767 on the previous day, the country’s health emergencies chief Fernando Simon said. The number of registered cases in the country rose to 19,980 on Friday from 17,147 on Thursday, Simon said. —Reuters

6:05 am: Deutsche Bank warns it may be ‘materially’ impacted

Deutsche Bank has warned COVID-19 might significantly impact its ability to meet its financial targets this year. 

“While it is too early to predict the impacts on business or the bank’s financial targets that the expanding pandemic, and the governmental responses to it, may have, the bank may be materially adversely affected by a protracted downturn in local, regional or global economic conditions,” the bank said in a statement published Friday. “Given the uncertainty around extent, duration and market spillover of COVID 19, forward-looking assumptions do not currently consider any of its potential impacts,” it added. —Sam Meredith

4:16 am: Global death toll surpasses 10,000

The global death toll rose above 10,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The exact number stood at 10,031 on Friday morning with total confirmed cases at 244,523.

On Thursday, Italy overtook China to be the world’s deadliest hotspot with 3,405 deaths registered. —Matt Clinch

4:05 am: Norway’s central bank cuts interest rates again

Norges Bank cut its key policy rate to a record low of 0.25% from 1% and doesn’t rule out further reductions in interest rates, reported Reuters.

It was the Norwegian central bank’s second interest rate reduction due to COVID-19. The Norges Bank cut its policy rate by half a percentage point on March 13, when Governor Oeystein Olsen said the economy was in a state of emergency, according to the report. —Yen Nee Lee

Read CNBC’s coverage from CNBC’s Asia-Pacific and Europe teams overnight here: California issues stay home order, global death toll surpasses 10,000

—Reuters and CNBC’s Weizhen Tan, Matt Clinch, Sam Meredith, and Yen Nee Lee contributed to this report.

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