harley davidson is in talks with major u.s.lion in funding and expects to tap banks for more. in the u.s., sales have dropped for 13 quarters in a row. quarter posting first sales and profits that beat estimates. patients rush to buy drugs before the coronavirus lockdown begin. we asked the ceo of novartis how long he thinks it will take to get a vaccine. >> an astonishing feat if we were able to get a vaccine out by this year, given that my own experience spending decades of working on vaccines, the r&d of distribution, it does take many years to get a safe vaccine. viviana: the pandemic forcing stop a big trial for a cholesterol drug. nissan expects to take a loss. the japanese automaker blaming the coronavirus pandemic. nissan is also delaying its earnings report until may 28. before the virus broke out, the company was struggling with plunging sales. i am viviana hurtado and that is your bloomberg business flash. alix: time for bottom line. we look at companies worth watching this morning. today we will focus on the energy

one of my favorites harley davidson is up. not because sales are up but because we got a plan.gail: is one of the most that stockkers, hog, soaring, up 12.5%. it's best day in three weeks. it's for update in a row. the longest since 2019. the bulls are out. sales are going in the wrong direction. five down quarters in a row. ,3 quarters down in the u.s. speaking to a demographic change. millenials not writing those motorcycles. what we do have rising and moving in the right direction is cash. they are in talks for some of the biggest banks in the country about raising $1.3 billion in cash to help out the capital structure. they are in a round of cost-cutting. they are looking for a new ceo, but other executives are taking pay cuts and other cost-cutting measures in place. while there is not a great comp for harley davidson, we have strength across the automotive complex. we have manufacturers up and winnebago industries rally. that special vehicle maker up. ford higher. on the year, it has been hard for all of these, including harley, office 2000 six highs by 70%. up day. have

stocks that were higher are holding onto the gains, like harley-davidson, best buy, and d.r.ton. stocks dragging on things, as well as boeing. the s&p 500 is now just down 0.1%. the nasdaq is down 0.9%. in terms of the vix, we have seen that pop a little but higher. we started the day around 31, which would indicate some calm. we are up around 36 now. guy: here in europe as we head towards the close, european equities still reasonably positive. we are up by around 1.5%. the dax underperforming a little bit today. wirecard is one of the reasons behind that. it will review all of the data in the company audit. atve got the cac 40 trading 4559. the banking sector in particular is driving europe to the upside. i will give you the details when we do the european close. that is coming up next. this is bloomberg. ♪ save hundreds on your wireless bill without even leaving your house. just keep your phone and switch to xfinity mobile. you can get it by ordering a free sim card online. once you activate, you'll only have to pay for the data you need- starting at just $12 a month. there

harley davidson jumped after its new acting ceo outlined plans to cut costs and focus on traditionalll stop impeding in markets where the chances of success are seen as low. that could be the -- only a few manufacturers to grow in the coming months. reliance industries is having its first rights issue in 30 years as it looks to pair debts. india's largest company by market value will consider a share sale at the end of the month. the energy to technology conglomerate has announced three unfreezing efforts in recent billioncluding a $5.7 tie up with facebook. china's biggest banks have released first quarter earnings, reporting a small increase in growth as bad loans climbed amid pressures from the virus pandemic. let's get to selina wang for more. what do we learn from the reports of the big banks? how badly worthy hit? -- were they hit? selina: they got some growth, despite the climb in bad loans. and with the follow-up from the pandemic, china's largest lender reported a 3% rise in first-quarter profits, the slowest since 2015. there is a 1.8% gain. with agriculture, bank of china

ed, a couple of things i just noticed, harley-davidson has temporarily laid off most of its global productionlemented salary cuts because their businesses hit. this is something that "the wall street journal" reported, and i believe monday the second round of layoffs is going to start happening because of the impact of all of this. >> that's a midsized company that we are talking about there. the federal reserve has put out to come up the larger companies don't get these forgivable loans and it would be alone that they have to pay back. this will hit the economy very, very hard. in fact the federal reserve district president just released in their perspective of what the economy looks like and the words and there were just horrible, talking about steep decline, big cuts going forward and the economy basically contracting sharply. so yes. there may be more issues out there and that's what the payroll protection program is meant to help some of the smallest businesses stick around and be able to pay those employees and keep them off of the unemployment. we will still have bad unemployment numbe

tell me about harley davidson. susan: not good. we saw a 45% drop there and harley davidson, 3m, also some of the names reporting just before the bell today. merck and pfizer, southwest airlines, pepsico, the names go on and on. the uncertainty on the outlook for the rest of this year. after the bell today, we are expecting starbucks which is the largest coffee maker and coffee chain in the world, then also the rollout of the big tech companies, alphabet, parent company of google, will be kicking it all off for these big silicon valley behemoths. we are looking for profits to be down from last year because they are spending more to get people to use their sites. on google search, youtube and the like. they also for the first time started breaking out their individual businesses so google cloud will get some individual numbers, youtube and search as well. advertising spending is expected to be down about 30%. they rarely give guidance heading into this but it will be interesting to see what they give us for the rest of the year, how

of the safety the blue angels just flew over there's a big roar outside pepsi, xerox, u.p.s., harley davidson withdrawing guidance. here is a list of the companies withdrawing the guidance 98 of them and our own tally here at cnbc, 30 have suspended or cut the dividend and 67 have suspended buy backs. this is just this quarter. we're only one-third of the way through earning season a lot more to come back to you. >> thank you very much >>> the federal reserve kicking off its two day meeting as i continues to help prop up the economy during the coronavirus out break. steve has more on what to expect with details from our exclus ifr cnbc fed survey. hey, steve >> we hoped to hear how the fed sees this economic downturn and recovery there's a long hard road ahead and a lot more money needed from federal reserve and from congress staying el valted through the year and only falling to 7% by the end of next year now, that's going to require even so considerable funds that. they already put in around $5 trillion another 3.4 expected in fed's balance sheet. congress needing another 2 trillion accordi

today during the daily briefing, i checked it during the commercial break, and harley-davidson had hadf global production. and that means how many people then aren't getting a paycheck? now they don't have health care insurance. now they have to figure out a way to feed their families. they have to join one of these food lines, and they are concerned about the risk. if you are hungry, you will risk a lot. in order to feed your family. you cannot think straight if you are hungry. and so when you are talking about basic needs like that, you have to find a way to give people encouragement and also keep them safe. i don't envy the governors. they have a really, really tough job. >> juan: and kennedy, i know you have some libertarian leadings, gleanings, do you think they would object to the idea that you have to stay at home with an order from the governor? >> kennedy: i think when there is a mutual understanding of what is going to keep people safe and what we can do to help people with that, that's one thing. my biggest fear is the biggest month and a half in the middle of homeschooling,

that's the one thing that is hurting harley davidson, though at least a dealer in new jersey said hers because only parts and service departments are considered essential. he joins us right now. bob, how you holding up? >> we are fighting for our lives here, neil. but our service department is working diligently to keep our customers on the road. neil: what i find weird about that is the service department is next to your actual dealership, right? >> well, it's connected. it's connected. it's in the back side of the showroom. neil: so the reason i mention it, not to be silly about it, if that's open, your parts and service department is open, what would be the harm in just having the place right next door open? >> social distancing. what they are allowing us now is to sell motorcycles via the internet. neil: but you could police social distancing there. i'm not going to argue with city hall and the federal government now policing this whole social distancing thing, but it's not as if you couldn't control, i said the same about auto showrooms where they can control the traffic, as the