| Powell says he's ready to do more, reopening gathers pace, and markets rally. No "V" As economists debate how fast the global economic recovery from the coronavirus will be, the consensus is pushing back against a V-shaped revival in favor of a much slower "swoosh." Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned in an interview on CBS yesterday that the rebound could take until the end of 2021, depending on how quickly a vaccine can be delivered. He said there was a lot more the central bank could do to support the economy and that it was not out of ammunition "by a long shot." Reopenings The return to normal continues across the world, with China, the country first hit by the outbreak, seeing increased dining out and traffic jams in Beijing. The country's postponed annual meeting of parliament is scheduled to begin on Friday. In Europe, shops in Italy reopen, while Germany showed a small increase in cases as it continues to unwind measures introduced to control the outbreak. Apple Inc. will open 25 stores in the U.S. this week, while Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services, said he was encouraged there has not been a jump in cases in states that moved early on reopening such as Georgia and Florida. Oil jump Crude's plunge into negative territory is already starting to look like a distant memory for the oil market, with a barrel of West Texas Intermediate for June delivery posting further gains this morning to trade above $31. Swift moves to curtail production as economies come back online means that investors' worst fears may not come to pass. In the U.S., the pace of the output cuts in the shale patch has run deeper and faster than anyone expected, meaning the pressure on storage has eased significantly. Markets rise Global equity investors seem to be taking a glass-half-full view of the world this morning as policymakers move to get economies back on track. Overnight the MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.1% while Japan's Topix index closed 0.4% higher. There has been a much larger move in Europe where the Stoxx 600 Index had gained 2% by 5:50 a.m. Eastern Time with miners and carmakers leading the rally. S&P 500 futures pointed to a jump at the open, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 0.646% and gold rose. Coming up... Chinese leader Xi Jinping will address the World Health Organization's decision-making body today by videoconference at the start of its annual meeting in Geneva as international leaders call for an investigation into the source of the virus. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic speaks later. Texas will reopen gyms and movie theaters. Baidu Inc. reports earnings. What we've been reading This is what's caught our eye over the weekend. And finally, here's what Joe's interested in this morning If you're looking for something to listen to today, then I recommend checking out the latest Odd Lots podcast where Tracy Alloway and I talked to Mark Cuban, the entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks. His main message about the crisis is straightforward: What the economy lacks right now is adequate consumer demand, and one part of the solution is simply the government hiring millions of people directly to get people employed again. It's an incredibly simple message, and it's not what you typically hear from business leaders talking about the economy. Usually they talk about things like fixing the tax code, incentivizing investment, clearing out unwelcome regulations, unleashing the power of the private sector and all that. However in addition to owning an NBA team, Cuban is also thinking about running for president at some point -- which he also talked about in our conversation -- and so his emphasis on creating jobs is a de facto campaign message.
This is something I've been writing about a lot over the past several weeks. With this staggering jobs crisis that the U.S. is facing, a growing number of political figures from different sides of the spectrum are calling for federal employment subsidies or direct job creation. This would be a big change from the past, where employment was expected to emerge naturally by tweaking other things. With unemployment as high as it is, the salience of this message is being recognized. Anyway, check out the episode for more, including his ideas for healthcare, restarting the NBA, and whether Elon Musk should move to Texas.  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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