♪ francine: euro area finance ministers failed to agree on an economic plan to tackle the crisis. the latest from brussels. new york and the u.k. report the worst death toll since the coronavirus began. wuhan has returned to normal after lockdown is lifted. boris johnson remains in intensive care. the government says his condition is stable. welcome to "bloomberg surveillance."

i'm nejra cehic in london. overall, the stoxx 600 in the red today. we had some real movement on u.s. futures overnight, flirting around the flatline. we see a little bit of optimism come through on u.s. futures after the s&p 500 briefly rose over 20%. d yieldsthe 10 year bun and other core yields slide in europe. some dollar strength. it is moving higher against all g10. the aussie underperforming. oil bouncing back after two days of declines. let's get the bloomberg first word news with viviana hurtado in new york. viviana: we begin with prime minister boris johnson. he remains in intensive care. dominic raab is trying to reassure britain's fight against coronavirus is under control.

the u.k. is heading to the peak of its outbreak. the government has been criticized over its handling of the crisis. saying he isb confident the prime minister will pull through because "he is a fighter." theark and austria became first european countries to loosen restrictions. sources telling us selective firms could reopen around mid april and that may include firms in agriculture and health, as well as equipment manufacturers. protections for workers remain critical. exodus, asg a mass the city relaxes its lockdown. today, about 55,000 people had train tickets out of the city. flights are resuming from the international airport but fear of a resurgence in infections means some restrictions are still in place. housing compounds will retain the power to put resident under lockdown again. now to the world's largest oil

producers. they are inching closer to eight a deal -- to a deal after the u.s. says it sees production dropping dramatically. that forecast helping pave the way for saudi arabia and russia to coordinate their own output cuts. this as tomorrow's virtual opec-plus meeting reports they could agree to reduce global output by about 10 million barrels per day. there will not be a rapid recovery for the u.s. economy. this statement is according to former fed chairman ben bernanke. he says the u.s. will probably have to restart fairly gradually. in the second quarter, he sees the economy contracting about 30% or more. ben bernanke brushing off comparisons to the great depression. she says if all goes well, the economy should be -- he says if all goes well, the economy should be in a better position 22.the year 200 global news 24 hours a day, on-air and on quicktake by bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries.

i am viviana hurtado. this is bloomberg. nejra: thank you so much. from that update on of the u.s., let's look at an update on germany. german institute senior a cut -- sees the economy shrinking over 10% in the second quarter. they see the economy shrinking 4.2% in 2020. they see the economy growing by 5.8% next year in. 2021.g with europe -- staying with europe, eurozone finance ministers ended a conference with no agreement on a strategy to mitigate the damage of the coronavirus pandemic. the call lasted more than 16 hours but they were unable to reconcile views over possible joint debt issuance and conditionality attached to the european mechanism. joining us is maria tadeo in brussels. we went into this meeting with three proposals. what happened on that 16 hour call? maria: well, there has been many ideas posed, as you mentioned.

the sticking point is really the -- and really the debate is it should have conditionality attached to it. italy does not want to be seen as being bailed out politically. this is also very toxic in the internal dynamic of the country. was yesterday, salvini saying that if he goes for any attempt that carries conditionality, [indiscernible] the stakes are very high on that as a political issue. on a more technical level, there has bit this -- there has been this idea of a rescue fund. essentially, this would be a way to share the cost of the crisis and to show european solidarity working. for some that do not want to see

risksharing, they will tell you perhaps it looks like an undercover corona bond. there is a level of mutual debt burden. the fact that there was no agreement yesterday, i would say that over the past 20 minutes, the language has changed. we got a joint statement from the german and french finance minister saying they want to see a compromise. they want to have the european economy shielded from the coronavirus crisis. there will be a follow-up call tomorrow on thursday. can you really bridge all those differences in 24 hours and have something to put into paper tomorrow? nejra: exactly. well, we will look forward to the on thursday, maria -- to that on thursday, maria. in terms of easing the lockdown across europe, you have austria and denmark leading on this but how will this work? maria: what you see right now is there is a real debate between

how long do we stay closed, shut every economic activity to protect people? also, how is this going to impact your economy going forward? austria saying they want to go back gradually. when is italy going to do this? many reports suggest the country wants to open up on a very gradual, minimal basis but just get something going. it does not mean it will change overnight. that is kind of what the italian government is signaling, is they don't want to commit to any date. emmanuel macron is not too keen on ending the lockdown too early. thereanish are saying will probably be another lockdown after april 25. it is going to be very gradual. nejra: maria tadeo in brussels, thank you so much. coming up, ray dalio still

thinks cash's trash -- cash is trash. howard marks says it is time to stop playing defense. up next, more from those big voices. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ economics, finance, politics, this is "bloomberg surveillance." let's get the bloomberg business flash. viviana: we begin with a pledge of $1 billion of his stake in square from twitter cofounder jack dorsey to help fight the coronavirus. it is the largest pandemic related donation yet. mr. dorsey says he hopes it

inspires to do the same. he has a net worth of $3.9 billion. both of that is made up of equity in twitter and square. heineken abandoning its plan for the year. first quarter beer volume dropping about. 4%. . total volume, include soft drinks, falling 4%. u.k. businesses are struggling to access the cash promised by the government, according to the british chambers of commerce. just 1% of the companies surveyed vanished to access the chancellor's new scheme. beenid they have unsuccessful, many setting the complexity of the operation and in some cases, no answer at all. that is your bloomberg business flash. nejra: nissan's top priority is to conserve cash, while making better use of its assets, as the

coronavirus pandemic hits the auto industry. that marks a shift in strategy for the carmaker, who had previously tried to find buyers for some of its subsidiaries. our principle of prioritization and focus about indonesia, it is not the end of business. we are getting into indonesia and our original dna of suv mpv, with the new suv. the 300,000olve customers which are driving the nissan cars in indonesia. concerned,lant is yes, we do stop the plant for the time being. weh this rebranded strategy,

do hope that we will come back -- facility in indonesia. >> we have seen nissan put 10,000 u.s. workers on furlough. you have called this a temporary layoff. does that mean you will be rehiring all of them after the pandemic is over? >> absolutely. plantsns are closed -- are closed, because we want the safety of the people first. this is what we did in europe, this is what we did in the u.s. we are following the regulations and practices in each country. >> what about -- what is the current environment then for the introduction of new models, in particular the much-hyped rogue? >> the new models are the activists for our growth. new modeltinuing our

development, because we do believe at once, the customer confidence, the market confidence comes back. we will be utilizing our new products and the new technologies to get the momentum once again in the business. >> with all of the pandemic thesens, it feels like evergreen worries have taken a backseat, but what are you doing to prepare for brexit? given the absence of trade talks at the moment, would you be looking at a closure of that side? i basically, one month before -- the opportunity to visit it has a great history for nissan. we have produced over 10 million cars there. out of this plan, we have created a new segment in europe which is called crossover suv.

whichently launched juke, is really doing great in europe. as far as nissan is concerned, we are continuing with our regular business in europe using the plant. always, we as nissan followed the local business practices. and the impact on the brexit could change the landscape we do the business in europe. thater, we do believe anticipating the impact it can have on the automotive industry, knowing that nissan is the biggest automotive manufacture in united kingdom, i do believe that the talks between europe and the united kingdom will be business friendly condition for the auto markets. >> when it comes to managing cash flow in nissan, we have seen you struggling a bit when

it comes to issuing paper. since some timber, we have seen some -- september, we have seen some downgrades, raising the cost of capital for you. how will this -- you're balance sheet look if this pandemic goes for longer than the summer of -- your balance sheet look like if this pandemic goes for longer than the summer or fall? banksh the support of our and the government support, we are continuing with our operational cash management. we do believe with what is happening today, it is challenging, but not impossible. we are continuing with our regular operations under the circumstances. that was the nissan ceo speaking exclusively to bloomberg. coming up, as the world's central banks struggled to respond to the growing economic disruption from the coronavirus, we will break down what they

have done so far and what could be to come. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ nejra: cash is trash. that is the view of billionaire investor ray dalio.

there are better assets to hold than cash. he says well it does not move around in value as much as other assets, there is still a costly negative return to it. joining us now is wen-wen lindroth, lead cross asset strategist at fil investment management. i want to get your thoughts on comments from howard marks of oaktree. he said that it is time for investors to be more ostensive. the cautious positioning has served its purpose. while waiting for the market is irrational, he says now he is less worried about losing money and more interested in participating in gains. is that how you would approach the credit market right now? wen-wen: thank you. it is good to be here. i would take a slightly different view from him, and that i think it is still a good idea to maintain a good cash balance and portfolios. the market has been more risk on

in the last few weeks. i don't think we are out of the woods yet, because we still need to see how spiking unemployment in the u.s. is going to play out through the economy and markets. nejra: what signals would you be looking for, either in markets or and macroeconomic data to make you want to take on more risk? that we well, i think want to see that there isn't a cascade of delinquencies building up in the system. if we think about the american household or small business, liquidity is really crushed right now, are they going to be able to pay their bills, mortgages, etc.? if they are not, if the fiscal stimulus bill is not enough to get them through this, we could see a cascade of effects to the system. i would want to make sure that

this was not going to turn into a big, systemic risk event before really stepping back for throttle into a risk on mode -- full throttle into a risk on mode. nejra: you say in the short-term it makes sense to preserve a prudent liquidity cushion in your portfolio. how would you do that? wen-wen: i guess i would conserve the cash and also sell down companies where valuations have remained high, but there is the risk of downgrade, risk of financial stress. at the same time, i don't want to come off as being overly bearish and not acknowledging that valuations have in fact improved quite a bit since this crisis started. there are pockets of a value in the market and there are going to be opportunities, both in investment-grade and high-yield credit. from a broader picture, i do think that we need to keep in mind there could be another

letdown in the markets. nejra: right. it's interesting, because jim polson had a note yesterday where he talked about the fact that you're really seeing a big divergence in the vix and the mood index. according to his analysis, generally when you see that, it is bullish for equities. would you be taking a more cautious view on equities from here and seeing the rally we saw yesterday as nothing more than a bull trap -- pool trap -- trap? wen-wen: i would be cautious on equities. it is at the bottom of the capital structure so it is -- so high-yield is not going to do well. equities are even more at risk. noting that valuations have improved and it does not mean portfolio managers should

not be looking around the margin for good opportunities and thinking about the long-term value that is being created here. nejra: yes. n-wen, you are also saying that at the end of 2019, the confident u.s. consumer was the support propping up the economy. is that support gone, in your view? wen-wen: i would say that the consumer is very challenged at this point. it is going to take some time for the consumer to come back from this. the u.s. unemployment rate is reaching his start proportions. it is not quite -- historic proportion's. it is not -- proportions. it is not quite as bad in europe. france, for example, the government has offered to pay the full salary of workers for the next three months.

some parts ofr in the world has a little bit more cushion. nevertheless, this complete lockdown that the world is experiencing is constraining the household, the consumer quite a bit. for consumption to recover after all of this is over, it will take a second or even third wave of fiscal stimulus. nejra: ok. wen-wen lindroth, lead cross set -- cross asset strategist at fil investment management. the stoxx 600 down almost 1%. u.s. futures giving up some of their gains. ♪ you doing okay?

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transfer your service online in a few easy steps. now that's simple, easy, awesome. transfer your service in minutes, making moving with xfinity a breeze. visit xfinity.com/moving today. nejra: euro area finance ministers fail to agree on an

economic plan to tackle the crisis. we will get the latest from brussels. new york and the u.k. report their worst daily death tolls since the coronavirus pandemic began. life in wuhan, where the virus began, starts to return to normal as the lockdown is lifted. and british prime minister boris remains in intensive care. the government says his condition is stable. welcome to "surveillance." i'm nejra cehic in london. welcome to the show, everyone. let's get first word news with viviana hurtado. viviana: "he is a fighter." these are the words that dominic raab used to describe prime minister boris johnson. he remains in intensive care. the u.k. is heading into the peak of its outbreak. the government facing criticism over its handling of the crisis. european union finance ministers failing to agree on a strategy ,o combat coronavirus prolonging the paralysis and casting doubt over the chances of weathering the economic storm. the nations were unable to

bridge the gap after 16 hours. the main dividing line -- the topic of issuing joint debt. the french economy shrinking the most since world war ii and the first quarter, according to the bank of france. it says the outlook for the rest of the year is souring, and significantly. the 6% slump over the last three months is the latest indicator of the severity of the lockdown. we end with the white house developing a plan to get the economy back into action, but it depends on testing that so far americans have been unable to get. the effort would likely begin in smaller cities and towns that had not been heavily hit by the virus. hotspots like new york, detroit, and new orleans would remain in lockdown. global news 24 hours a day, on air and at quicktake by bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in i'm than 120 countries, viviana hurtado. this is bloomberg. nejra? nejra: thank you so much.

u.s. futures at all three main u.s. indexes have been swinging from gains to losses following a rocky session yesterday. oil remaining a little bit higher after two days of declines. joining us now is ursula mark from blackrock. we saw a number of indices move into bull market territory and we ask the question, is it the shortest bear market history -- and history? or is there not too much to read after the market moves over the last 24 hours? you take a longer term view at blackrock. what should investors be doing around their risk profile in the longer-term? ursula: absolutely. i would agree with you that although we are going into a

volatile market, it is important for investors to continue to focus on long-term objectives of their portfolios. there are certainly areas where tactical opportunities will be available, but again, broadly speaking, a lot of end clients are in market fall for the end game. if we take a step back, from a blackrock perspective, the view remains that without a doubt the pandemic will deliver economic shock, and yet although market boosts are reminiscent somehow of -- we do not think reminiscent of the -- reminiscent of the financial crisis somehow, we do not think we will return to that again. that remains the central view, and that means drastic public health measures without a doubt. it also coordinated monetary and

fiscal policy we are observing. this is the backdrop that drives the views. if i look at what investors are doing, how they reach out to our team, to blackrock in terms of thinking about their portfolios and what they are doing, how they are expressing their views, i see three main approaches. ,he first is what i call reload the second is what i call reset, and the third is redesign. a lot of investors will be doing a blending of this. in terms of reload, we see a group of investors focusing on the opportunities available in the markets. it is clear that this huge dislocation that is appearing will present value opportunities to reenter. screen of activities we are observing. the second one is -- for longer-term investors who remain benchmark driven. i think a lot of the flows that

we have just started to see going back to equities, through will go back to equities is that investors are going back to benchmarks and reloading, resetting toward the beforevels that they had suffering through the selloff. the third behavior -- yes? nejra: i'm going to have to jump in or we will run out of time. -- if we do get further market falls in the equity market, you are also thinking there is a need to diversify beyond government bonds. why and where to? ursula: absolutely. i think the topic of resilience is very much at the center of these redesigns in discussions with investors.

we think these discussions will lastingole in the protection of these portfolios, but it will be a few weeks back. and iteed that element, will continue to be important, and we like it as we like inflation protection securities. theselanced element with two instruments and essay classes will continue to be important. more andu talk about more investors looking to etf's to build liquidity. a lot of people i speak to say liquidity is important at the moment, but if you are also looking to be defensive, does having more of an esg element to your portfolio make that portfolio more defensive? nejra, yes., going have observed this

into the recent crisis. we looked at 50 portfolios from investors, and those that had higher yields toward sustainable assets clearly weathered the storm much better because of leaning toward quality, volatility, stocks in the equity space. from a longer-term perspective, we believe that sustainability does represent an opportunity to capture superior risk adjustment returns, so we think that is definitely an area to consider. more resilient or folios but also toward achieving the long-term objectives that investors -- more resilient towardios, but also achieving the long-term objectives of investors. nejra: thank you for joining us today. it is the time for a balanced -- speaking to blumberg exclusively, he added that an impact is certainly going to be felt and that he

expects to see several quarters of decline of up to 10% to 15%. take a listen. >> no one can predict the future, and i think the situation we have entered into at the moment really underscores that when we look forward, there is a multiple of possible futures, possible routes out of this. fund managers might become epidemiologists or virologists. we don't quite know how long we are going to be in lockdown in different industries, and we also don't quite know how much damage is going to be done to underlying companies the longer they have to live without cash flow. so we have a variety of possible futures. for ae see is it is time balanced portfolio, not taking

aggressive directional risks, but looking within sectors, within equities, within credit to find opportunities. so we are not being very heroic directionally at the moment. our current, in portfolios, that is the way we tend to position out portfolios all the time, with not having a strong directional bias but trying to find opportunities to protect capital. so i think the episode we have seen in recent weeks and months playing out really underscores a philosophy of not being too arrogant about our ability to predict the future. >> that said, have you made changes at the moment to take a more cautious stance with less exposure to cyclicality? did. we in terms of our more simple

balanced fund type structures, we started the year anticipating modest economic expansion, positioning the portfolios for that. you know, slightly overweight equities, credit exposure, that kind of obvious positioning when you hold that view. we are seeing now -- i mean, i think with the economic picture, we are potentially looking at a couple quarters of at least 10%, .o be 15% economic decline i just noticed there was a piece of data coming out from the international label organization saying 6.7% of working hours have been lost globally in this crisis, and i would wager that the rest of the working hours are not as productive as they might normally be because a lot of them are being spent dealing with the crisis. so we are expecting a major

economic hit. that is obvious. but we also felt that particularly a few weeks ago, when you had the opportunity with treasury yields going up at the same time as equity markets going down, we think that was an effect of hedge funds -- they were selling both of their treasury positions and gold, and traditional risk off strategies were doing poorly at the same time these were falling. that gave us an opportunity to rebalance and buy more treasuries as well as slightly reduce our equity position. and actually feel we were in a good position. that has proved to be successful over the last little while because although we might regret selling out of equities in the recent rally, the policy response has been beneficial to treasuries.

that was you on monroe -- munro speaking to myself and manus cranny. so many headlines coming out that are saying that the agreement with the e.u. is close but not quite yet secured. saying the e.u. discussion is about deploying the 500 billion euros. overnight, after 16 hours of a call, we did not get any decision of the call with finance ministers about how to move forward and tackle the crisis. all left schulz's sake all left say the- olaf scholz agreement was close but not quite yet secured. we will bring you more on that and on the markets next. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> we have an extraordinary thing going on. this is the first time that i know of, historically, where we basically asked businesses to suspend their activities, pretty much. there are some companies that are still functioning, but most places where you leave your place of business, they don't function as well, and we are basically creating sort of a huge disruption in the business have a gdp in we the united states, gross national product, somewhere around 21 trillion, and we will

probably miss $5 trillion of it. this is massive, and it washes throughout society, whether it is governments that will lose tax revenue, the inability to pay people, and provide services, and this is happening almost in a mandated way. fortunately, it is going to be temporary, but it is putting stress on every business organization. it does not matter whether it is walt disney or macy's, and all are looking to find more ways of dealing with their current debt loads, paying their people, trying to keep people on, and it is going to result in a lot of disruption and unemployment come as you see. fortunately, it is going to be temporary because the government has stepped in in a really huge with roughly out $2 trillion of stimulus going to

people. so if they are unemployed, they can have higher incomes than they ever would have expected in an unemployed situation. loans going out to companies, encouraging them to hire people and forgiving those loans. for smaller companies if they do. also done ant has remarkable job with the federal reserve, where they are providing liquidity and they are going to multiply that to $2 trillion with more loans. stimulus will be more after this. i anticipate another $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion. what this is expected to do is to bridge this guy and economy in the united states, the largest in the world, to get to the point where we can all go back to work physically. companies areall

under some strain unless they are providing food or doing certain other unique services. >> i wanted to pivot off of that in terms of what other companies are doing. there seems to be a push from private equity firms to get access to that bailout for small businesses. are you on the campus of the business really need that support despite the fact that they are private equity? differentre a few levels of these programs. i don't really know what the criteria for any of those programs are going to be. the programs for the larger companies, which are going to run through the fed with a lot of leverage in them, the smaller companies, and it is up to the government to basically lay out the terms. we are not lobbying the government for loans for small

companies. if they want us to do that and make that available, we will look at some things, but basically we assume that for the most part we have got to solve our own problems. that was blackstone chairman and ceo steve , talking about the massive disruption in the business community. we have more headlines coming through from german finance minister olaf scholz, who was just giving a news conference to reporters earlier in berlin. he hopes for an early agreement with finance ministers. he had a 16 hour phone call with finance ministers that came to know agreement. he said that he and partners agreed to the need on recovery funds, one of the points of contention. he also says the eurozone recovery must happen within the current framework.

we will bring you more on that and news out of europe as we get it. meanwhile, trump 17 prepares plans to reopen the economy, but and depend on testing more more americans. we will get you more on the american response to the coronavirus next. this is bloomberg. ♪

nejra: economics, finance, and politics. this is "bloomberg surveillance ." we are coming off the lows from the stoxx 600, still in the red after a number of european indices moved into bull market territory yesterday. we saw the s&p 500 do that as well. a very question over whether this is a bull trap here come as far as where markets go. the 10-year yield is steady, seeing some dollar strength generally, and oil bouncing back as well. president trump 17 is developing plans to get the u.s. economy back in action, but our sources tell us they depend on testing far more americans for coronavirus than it is possible to date. the white house has been given optimism. infections inw

new york tapered for the third day on tuesday, but he recorded his most deadly day of the coronavirus so far. annmarie hordern joins us from new york. as we ask ourselves the question whether this is a bull market trap for u.s. equities and whether investors yesterday were taking signals to deal with coronavirus and whether there was a short recovery, that short covering, walk us through the cases in new york. annmarie: the big question is if this is a turning point at the epicenter or not. the infection rate the last three days in a row has been lower, tapering off. at the same time, we still had yesterday in new york state the deadliest day in terms of the pandemic here. with 731 fatalities. every devastating number. andrew cuomo said thes social distancing is working. possibly that one encouraging statistic, giving a glimmer of hope. cuomo did also say to begin to

start thinking about restarting life, not exactly doing it, but maybe start to think about restarting life as we knew it before the lockdown. nejra: on that point about the trump administration as well, the opening of the economy back up, people familiar saying they are working on a plan. what do we know in terms of testing? annmarie: it would be all about testing, widespread rapid testing, to know whether or not you were infected. isolate those members of society but let others get on with their business. that would have to start in cities that are not hotspots like new york or miami. they would have to start in smaller cities. that is potentially one thing. remember, president donald trump said coming onto easter sunday we can coming he envisioned packed churches. he has two heed the advice of medical advisors -- he has to

heed the advice of medical advisors about social distancing, but one question that remains to be seen is either whether or not the u.s. is eager to open up society, will americans actually do that? will they be comfortable with going back out and living life as we knew it before this lockdown? nejra: annmarie hordern, thank you so much. let's get a check on the markets, a number of indices moving into bull territory yesterday. we are seeing the bcb bond market as finance ministers try to come to an agreement on a rescue plan for europe. "bloomberg surveillance" continues in the next hour. this is bloomberg. ♪

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," thi tom cope this morning, good news. perhaps fewer cases, perhaps the need for fewer hospital beds. perhaps the prime minister is stable. perhaps wuhan ends the lockdown and safely. suddenly oil below zero. no one wants the physical, tangible. calgary considers -- cash is needed in "days, not weeks." small businesses if republican senators will take a meeting with democratic senators. in this hour, arianna meza cotto. underorning, still onerous conditions at home. guy johnson is in london, which is a good thing as well. i