| Welcome to your morning markets update, delivered every weekday before the European open. Good morning. Global virus cases pass a milestone, U.S. jobless claims are coming and turmoil in oil markets continues apace. Here's what's moving markets. 2 Million It remains very difficult to find much comfort in the virus numbers flowing out of Europe. Global cases surpassed 2 million, with France registering its worst daily death toll so far, Spanish cases rising the most in six days and Portugal also seeing an increase in new infections. Deaths in the U.K. fell marginally, as officials see signs the virus may soon peak and markets continue to assess the impact the country's unprecedented stimulus package will have. In terms of lockdown exit strategies, the government in Germany is set to allow smaller shops to reopen next week and schools to gradually restart in May. The result of those moves to ease restrictions will be very closely scrutinized by other countries hoping to get back to business soon and particularly by U.S. President Donald Trump. Unemployment Investors will be girding themselves for the latest U.S. jobless claims numbers, which are set to show yet another surge and expected to push the four-week total of folks who have lost their jobs past the 20 million mark. It'll be the latest entry in a brutal run of U.S. data. The Federal Reserve said economic activity contracted sharply as the virus spread, with businesses very uncertain about the outlook and expecting the situation to worsen in coming months. May could be really ugly. Confidence among homebuilders took a record plunge, as did retail sales, and factory output dropped by the most since just after World War 2. Not that markets seem to care much. The Task Ahead The economic situation is no brighter elsewhere. China is set to announce GDP data on Friday which is expected to show a historic slump in economic activity which will lay bare the scale of the task ahead for global governments and monetary authorities in reviving their own economies. So far, G-20 countries have spent around 3.5% of GDP in battling the fallout from the pandemic and they have given support to debt relief for the world's poorest nations. And the fight will now happen after another blow dealt to global cooperation by Trump's decision to pull U.S. funding from the World Health Organization, a move that could mean governments are less prepared for the next pandemic. Demand Destruction Oil prices have continued to hold near 18-year lows as concerns about the glut of crude in the market at a time when demand has been decimated outweigh any output cuts. Ultimately, the oil market needed the production cuts that OPEC+ agreed upon to come months ago because demand has plunged by so much more that it has left the real oil market overwhelmed. The U.S., where crude stockpiles have surged, is mulling paying drillers to leave oil in the ground in order to limit supply and is leaving the threat of oil tariffs in play, so volatility in oil markets is far from over. Coming Up… Shares fell across most of Asia, European stock futures are marginally lower and U.S. futures are down following the slew of weak U.S. data. Five European Union countries have banned the short-selling of equities for a further month in a bid to calm markets. U.S. economic figures will take most of the attention again on Thursday, but we'll also have euro-area industrial production, a credit conditions survey from the Bank of England and very weak U.K. retail sales numbers to mull over. After the European close, two big earnings reports are due from luxury giant LVMH and cosmetics group L'Oreal SA. And even with all that's going on, investors may soon have to bring those parts of the brain that watch the twists and turns of Brexit out of hibernation. What We've Been Reading This is what's caught our eye over the past 24 hours. And finally, here's what Cormac Mullen is interested in this morning As one of the most uncertain earnings seasons ever kicks off, the barrage of profit downgrades from Wall Street analysts has started to ease — at least for now. Citigroup Inc.'s gauge of global earnings upgrades minus downgrades has edged higher in recent weeks after having reached its lowest level on record last month. With the coronavirus pandemic sowing chaos across the world, the investment community is looking for any indication of how bad the hit to earnings could be as the outbreak upends the global economy. Sadly, there is every chance this stabilization in revisions is just a pause — the results of an initial 'best guess' by analysts as to the virus' impact. In another measure of their uncertainty, the average spread between the lowest and highest earnings-per-share estimates for U.S. stocks is at a record high, according to Bank of America. While that gap might be tighter after this reporting season comes to an end, investors are unlikely to get all the answers they are looking for — especially the key ``how long will this continue?''  Cormac Mullen is a cross-asset reporter and editor for Bloomberg News in Tokyo. Like Bloomberg's Five Things? Subscribe for unlimited access to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. | 
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