Good morning.

1. All three major US stock indexes tumbled on Wednesday as retail sales data and quarterly earnings reports reflected the harm of the coronavirus outbreak. Shares of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Bank of America slipped after all three firms reported quarterly profit declines of at least 45%. It followed several weeks of hopeful rises – but now it seems the reality of the numbers could be settling in.

2. Australian shares are set to follow Wall Street downwards, with ASX futures down 117 points or 2.1%. The Aussie dollar also took a hit, falling to 62c – still a smidge higher than its fall below 60c a couple of weeks ago.

3. Australia’s economy will contract by 6.7% and unemployment will average 7.6% in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Updating its forecasts this week, the IMF said that if governments are successful in containing COVID-19, it then expects Australia to begin a fairly speedy recovery – growing 6.1% in 2021 – along with the rest of the world.

4. Australian spending has contracted by 20% on last year’s levels, according to the latest spending data from the Commonwealth Bank. Even spending on booze, which shot up in March, took a significant hit, as bottle shop purchases failed to cover the huge drop spending at pubs, clubs and other venues. Spending on clothing, recreation, personal care and transport declined.

5. To top off the doom and gloom here, data from online search company Indeed shows the local job market in freefall, with ads for jobs down 50% on the same time last year. The data follows Westpac’s consumer confidence survey on Wednesday, which showed the largest monthly fall on record, with one in five responding they had lost their entire income in March.

6. Thanks to government restrictions, food delivery and takeaway are the only ways restaurants and cafes can make money. However, some flinch at the high delivery commissions charged by major players like Uber Eats and Deliveroo. A few smaller platforms like Bopple and Mr Yum are moving into that space in Australia – providing more flexible platforms for restaurants to run their own delivery infrastructure. They’re not quite as slick as the big dogs, but – depending on where you live – you might find some local favourites that aren’t on those platforms.

7. Speaking of: US company DoorDash, which made its entrance into Australia last year, announced it would cut its commission in half for smaller restaurants. This is an interesting move, as Deliveroo and Uber Eats have refused to do so, despite calls from some of their parters. “By providing over 80% of restaurants on the DoorDash platform in Australia with a 50% commission reduction, we’re focusing this most recent relief effort on those most vulnerable: local businesses,” Australian general manager Thomas Stephens said.

8. It appears evident Australia has seen some great success flattening the curve of COVID-19 infections, it was inevitable we’d be hearing increasing calls to end quarantine restrictions. In the AFR today, multiple retail bosses are quoted cautiously calling for restrictions to be lifted or rolled back. “Everything we read from the experts is we have successfully slowed [the virus down] and done a whole lot better than other countries,” said Daniel Agostinelli, the chief executive of Australia’s largest footwear retailer, Accent Group. Of course, one has to seriously weigh up the consequences of that sort of relief, and consider how it could actually be executed.

9. Plant-based meat company Impossible Foods, creator of the much-vaunted Impossible Burger, is advertising for an Australia/NZ country manager on LinkedIn. Clearly the pandemic isn’t stopping certain sectors from expanding. Among all the other plant-based meat offerings – including v2foods and Fable here in Australia – Impossible’s pitch is that their product is as close to real meat as you can get, including the sinewy texture of muscle as well as ‘bleeding’. Its entry into Australia has been long-anticipated.

10. Just in time for a dramatic fall in spending, Apple has announced a new lower-cost phone: the latest version of the iPhone SE. It comes with a 4.7-inch display, like the iPhone 8, and runs on the same processor as the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro. It’s decently priced for an iPhone even in Australia, coming in at $749 here.

BONUS ITEM

Turns out spending your time messing around online can be deeply productive. Just ask the deputy director of Taiwan’s disease control authority.

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