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Detroit to be first to deploy Abbott Labs' 5-minute COVID-19 test, mayor says

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said today on Wolf Blitzer’s CNN show that the city of Detroit is on track to be the first city to deploy Abbott Labs' five-minute COVID-19 test. The city of Detroit received the Abbott Labs tests today, April 1. This system from Abbott received emergency clearance for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

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  Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg joins Influencers with Andy Serwer

  Yahoo Finance Video
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  'Content network effect' makes TikTok tough to copy

  TechCrunch

Moody's: Clinical trials troubled amid coronavirus outbreak, drug sales not so much

Anecdotal reports of clinical drug trials being disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak have caused concern for the life sciences sector at large, though it appears vaccine trials for COVID-19 won’t be affected, according to Moody’s.

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  In a significant change, Apple customers can now buy or rent titles directly in the Prime Video app

  TechCrunch
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  The great Trump testing scam

  Yahoo Finance

'They get one shot': Why Apple probably won't launch its 5G iPhone on time

There's a slim chance Apple will launch its 5G iPhone on time. But that could benefit the company.

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  WarnerMedia's new boss is former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar

  TechCrunch
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  Facebook takes its 'responsibility seriously for people to get the right information': Sheryl Sandberg on coronavirus crisis

  Yahoo Finance Video

Sheryl Sandberg on how Facebook is helping small and medium businesses

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg talks about helping small businesses and news organizations.

Bond-Buyers Fight for Slice of Debt Sale Surge Led by Oil Firms

(Bloomberg) -- Credit investors’ thirst for corporate debt is showing no sign of easing as they throw more than 70 billion euros ($76.5 billion) toward new European bond offerings in just one day.Investors are piling in to sales from firms including oil majors BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc alongside France’s Schneider Electric SE. Orderbooks on the day’s sixteen deals will top 72 billion euros, lifting global demand to beyond $670 billion this week alone.The tide of cash has allowed companies to chop pricing on their bonds with Schneider Electric SE pulling in a staggering 8.8 billion euros of orders for a 500 million-euro seven-year note. It will price the deal at 125 basis points above midswaps and 60 basis points inside an initial price target, according to a person with knowledge of the sale who asked not to be identified citing company policy.“Primary market activity has resumed with a vengeance,” said Wolfgang Bauer, a fund manager at M&G Plc. “It’s fair to say that market functionality in the European investment-grade market, particularly on the primary market side, has noticeably improved over the past week.”Oil trioOil giants BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc and OMV AG are all offering euro notes due in four, eight and 12 years, with BP offering the most generous terms. It’s marketing benchmark-sized eight-year notes at about 270 basis points above swaps and inside an opening target of 290 basis points. That was 75 and 55 basis points more than the opening offers on Shell and OMV’s same-maturity notes.Yesterday BP announced a 25% cut to spending for this year, as the global coronavirus pandemic and a huge surplus of crude sends the oil market into freefall. Meanwhile Shell signed a $12 billion credit line just days ago, as it attempts to boost standby funds. The commodity is starting to rebound, however, surging as much as 13% on Thursday as China moved forward with plans to bolster its reserves.Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets Plc and British American Tobacco Plc are among 13 other issuers also bringing new debt deals in Europe.U.S. banking giant Goldman Sachs thinks the peak of the high-grade credit market rout was probably in March, before the Federal Reserve and other central banks started pumping liquidity into the financial system. Even so, spreads on such debt will probably remain at levels indicating recession for another two quarters, and the outlook for the high-yield market looks grim, Goldman Sachs strategist Lotfi Karoui, wrote in a report.Thursday was a down day for credit in Asia. Yield premiums on Asian dollar bonds and the cost of insuring debt against default in the region both increased, as more dour news on the coronavirus pandemic limited risk-taking. Read more about that here.Emerging-market debt is also being targeted by sellers, traders say. Those economies are suffering disproportionately from the collapse of commodity prices, supply chains, trade and spending, and monetary and fiscal stimulus measures could worsen the massive exodus by foreign investors.EuropeSixteen deals are being offered in the primary market this morning, led by triple-tranche deals from three oil firms. Daily volume will reach at least 25 billion euros, taking the sales tally for the week to at least 84 billion eurosCorporate bond spreads continue to ease from the highest levels since 2012, falling 3 basis points to 239 basis points on WednesdayDefault-swaps insuring the highest-rated corporate debt remain elevated at about 105 basis points. Nonetheless, this compares to a peak of about 138 basis points reached last month, according to a Bloomberg Barclays indexMore triple-B rated companies are diving in to the market, with LafargeHolcim among Thursday’s sellers in the ratings category“While last week the focus had still been firmly on issuers at the higher end of the investment-grade quality spectrum, this week BBB-rated issuers have joined the new issue pipeline,” said M&G’s BauerBanks may ask authorities to advise against calls on some instruments if the economy deteriorates further, Jakub Lichwa, a strategist at Royal Bank of Canada, wrote in a noteAsiaSpreads on top-rated Asian dollar bonds were around 10 basis points wider Thursday, according to traders, after rising 3 basis points Wednesday. They are headed for a seventh straight week of increases, the longest such streak in more than a year, according to a Bloomberg Barclays indexThe Markit iTraxx Asia ex-Japan index of credit-default swaps rose about 5-8 basis points on Thursday, according traders. The gauge widened 13 on Wednesday, according to CMA dataChinese investment-grade dollar bonds may continue to outperform other emerging-market peers, says Todd Schubert, head of fixed-income research at Bank of Singapore Ltd. Better-rated Chinese notes are often government related and seem to be considered a safe haven in emerging economies, he saysSouth Korea’s 20 trillion won ($16 billion) bond stabilization fund started buying corporate notes and commercial paper from today, the Financial Services Commission said. The regulator believes the fund will act as a safety net for the marketA sale of asset-backed securities by Korean Air Lines Co. showed carriers pummeled by the coronavirus outbreak can still issue debt, though at a steep cost. Here’s a chart showing the tumble in the airline’s dollar notes:U.S.Credit markets weakened with stocks on Wednesday as President Donald Trump told the U.S. to brace for one of its toughest stretches as a nation, with the death toll from the virus projected to potentially top 200,000The high-grade borrowing bonanza showed no signs of abating with 11 companies launching $28.5 billion in new debt, meaning 36 issuers have already priced $78.8 billion this weekCarnival wrapped up its $4 billion bond sale after boosting the dollar component, dropping the euro tranche and getting a two-notch downgrade from Moody’s Investors Service on TuesdayFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Children Stuck at Home Are Getting More Screen Time Than Ever

(Bloomberg) -- For David Krieger’s kids in south Florida, screens were a weekend treat. Now, every day is iPad-appropriate.The family’s schedule tries to cap the fun time on screens for the two kids to an hour between their educational activities, both also on electronic displays: a Zoom reading class, and an online drawing session. But the limit never sticks. With two working parents, “it is a necessity,” Krieger says.As stay-in-place orders to contain the spread of the coronavirus globally keeps 1.5 billion school children home, restricted screen time is becoming a thing of the past. Across the world, from the Krieger kids to Mila, 9, in Paris, who loves attending classes on Zoom, and Ruby, 5, in London, who’s now a whiz at Minecraft, children are spending more time on their screens than ever before.“It’s not ideal; we try to limit, but hell, without teachers it’s impossible to fill the days,” said Rachel Wilson, Ruby’s mother, a business writer who lives near Greenwich Park in southeast London.While in the past, potential consequences -- especially for child development and mental health -- drove parents to seek out electronics-free schools and put time limits on their children’s screen exposure, with COVID-19, those concerns have fallen by the wayside. The big worry now is that the surge in screen time will outlast the quarantine as children develop new habits.“Parents have temporarily lost the battle of screen time, but they can keep control,” said Serge Tisseron, a Paris-based psychiatrist, who studies the screen-time impact on kids. “They can choose -- there’s quality and trash available. This crisis will maybe bring one good thing: a sharp increase in content and selection.”Dylan Collins, chief executive officer of U.K.-based startup SuperAwesome and a partner at Hoxton venture capital, says kid tech, “which wasn’t in the DNA of Silicon Valley, is going to make a giant leap forward -- education tech will benefit enormously; content-moderation tools for parents; chats will have to create many more functionalities for teens and kids.”He cited the example of Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, that’s integrating games and screen-sharing in Houseparty, the group video-chat app it acquired last year.“Children are re-purposing many apps and tools that weren’t meant for them, like Zoom, or games like Fortnite,” said Collins, whose firm advises companies from Lego A/S and Nintendo Co. on kid-tech applications.. “All these tech companies are becoming family services, and they were not designed for that.”Parents, meanwhile, are commiserating in Facebook groups and downloading apps to help them better manage their children’s screen time.“You can feel and you can see that it’s an addiction,” Krieger said. “It’s better to not feed it.” Given a choice between screens and Lego, his children always pick screens, he said. “If there was no such thing as a screen, I think my kids could spend the whole day playing Legos, but since they know there’s a screen, they don’t want to.”Michelle Clarke, a Massachusetts communications consultant, intends to reinstate her no-screens-in-the-bedroom rule for her teens once they go back to school.“The only thing worse than having your kids exhibit device-addiction effects is experiencing it in shelter-at-home,” she said.Screen time for children “is bound to go up, doubling is even a conservative estimate,” said Simon Leggett, research director at Childwise, a market research firm in the U.K.“Online video, audio chats and online gaming are bound to increase, whether general socializing or discussing school work during the day,” he said.Video-conferencing app Zoom has become widely popular, even among younger kids. The San Jose, California-based company’s stock has more than doubled from the $62 closing price on its first day of trading last April, giving it a market value above $40 billion.Still, its security features remain a concern for some parents. This week, it was sued by a user who claims the company is illegally disclosing personal information. Last year, security firm Check Point notified the company that its systems could have allowed a threat actor to potentially identify and join active meetings. It said Zoom has addressed the issues since.Screen-time worries remain largely an issue for higher-income countries, but its impact will eventually make it to other nations as standards of living rise, said UNICEF’s chief of policy, Jasmina Byrne.“We can only speculate what this huge experiment will bring,” she said.Last November, the World Health Organization said “sedentary screen time should be no more than one hour; less is better” for children below five. A University of Ottawa study in August, “Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development,” showed that children whose screen time remains under two hours a day, who exercise and who get between nine and 11 hours of sleep at night are “less impulsive.”Nevertheless, there may be no going back. For Childwise’s Leggett, the big question is what “the new normal” will be.“Societal habits will have to change in the long term,” he said. “I don’t see everything going back to normal, so new habits and skills picked up now by children are likely to continue at some level in some form in the future.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Trump to Meet With Oil Executives Reeling From Price Drop

(Bloomberg) -- Oil company executives reeling from a massive drop in prices were set to meet with President Donald Trump Friday as the administration seeks ways to help the beleaguered industry.The meeting, which was confirmed by the American Petroleum Institute, comes just as Saudi Arabia unleashes a record volume of crude into the already-glutted global oil market, escalating a price war with Russia. Trump, who once hailed the unprecedented plunge in oil prices as a “tax cut” for American consumers, has stepped up efforts in recent days to intervene as the rout threatens to wipe out tens of thousands of jobs in America’s shale patch.“We don’t want to lose our great oil companies,” Trump said Wednesday during a briefing at the White House.The president said he expects the two countries to settle their differences. He also said he’s planning to meet with independent oil producers in addition to the majors.“They’re negotiating, they’re talking, and I think they’ll come up with something,” Trump said. “I do believe there’s a way that that can be solved or pretty well solved.”Executives from companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Continental Resources Inc. are expected to attend, according to people familiar with the meeting who asked not to be named to discuss non-public matters.Among the topics expected to be discussed are possible tariffs on oil imports into the U.S. from Saudi Arabia, and relief from the Jones Act that requires ships that transport goods between U.S. ports to be American-flagged, according to one of the people familiar.Attendees represent companies across the oil industry, including independent producers such as Continental and Devon Energy Corp., at least one midstream pipeline operator, Energy Transfer Partners, and one refiner, Phillips 66, according to another person familiar with the meeting. Representatives of the American Petroleum Institute are also attending the meeting.No independent offshore oil producers were invited to the summit. And no European oil majors, even those with substantial U.S. operations are invited, so Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc, Equinor ASA and others are left out.The companies have advanced widely varying prescriptions for dealing with the glut of crude fed by the Russia-Saudi oil price war and collapsing demand from the coronavirus.Oil majors such as Exxon and Chevron for instance have typically opposed any kind of government intervention in crude markets including tariffs and mandated production cuts. With better access to capital and diversification of businesses, they’re more resilient than smaller operators to ride out the rout.But some U.S. independent explorers, whose tenacity and technological innovation began the shale oil revolution, argue that such low crude prices risk killing America’s domestic industry, leaving the country dependent on foreign producers once again.Continental Resources Chairman Harold Hamm has urged the U.S. to impose tariffs on Saudi and Russian crude, while several oil industry trade groups and refiners have warned against that step. The American Exploration and Production Council previously floated the Jones Act waiver.In a joint letter to Trump, the heads of the American Petroleum Institute and American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers urged the president not to take any action that would restrict crude imports. “Imposing supply constraints, such as quotas, tariffs, or bans on foreign crude oil would exacerbate this already difficult situation,” they wrote.Texas Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton, one of three regulators in the largest oil-producing state, says Trump should offer that the U.S. cut production at home for matching reductions from Saudi Arabia and Russia.(Updates with joint industry letter in 14th paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Apple's New Deal With Amazon Prime Video Is a Game Changer

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- What was once sacrosanct is no more. Apple Inc. seems to have blinked.Late Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that Apple has relaxed its rules requiring a 30% cut for any content sold inside video apps on its iOS platform. The tech giant said its program allows “premium subscription video” providers the ability to charge consumers directly using their own payment systems without paying a commission to Apple.For customers of Amazon.com Inc., which started taking advantage of the change on Wednesday,  it means Amazon’s Prime Video subscribers in the U.S., U.K. and Germany, can now buy or rent video content using the e-commerce company’s app on Apple’s platforms. Amazon.com Inc. had previously only allowed video purchases outside of Apple’s ecosystem, such as its website. Canal+, owned by Vivendi SA, and Altice USA Inc.’s Altice One had already joined Apple’s program in recent years.As recently as last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook told CBS News the company didn’t have a dominant position in any market. But analysts have said Apple’s App Store may be the one business where it actually had excessive power over developers, because of the steep commission it was able to demand in exchange for allowing their apps, in-app purchases and subscriptions to be sold on its platforms. (The 30% subscription fee is lowered to 15% after the first year.)The Apple App Store’s high commission structure has been infuriating for many companies. In 2019, music-streaming company Spotify  Technology SA filed a complaint against Apple with the European Commission, while Epic Games Inc. CEO Tim Sweeney, whose company makes Fortnite, has consistently railed against Apple’s commission structure as unjustified. Netflix Inc. even abandoned using Apple’s payment system altogether to avoid the fee in 2018.Why did Apple budge? Perhaps it’s a move to preempt further pressure from regulators. Whatever the reason, once the first step is made toward lower fees, there is no turning back.It’s only a matter time before other companies such as Netflix, Spotify and countless others ask for better terms as well. Lower middle-man fees can also be good news for consumers if it leads to lower prices, too.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Tae Kim is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. He previously covered technology for Barron's, following an earlier career as an equity analyst.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Apple will stop taking cut of some Amazon video purchases on App Store

To make purchases inside apps on its App Store, Apple requires the use of Apple's own payment systems and takes a commission of between 15% and 30% before passing on the rest to the third-party app developer. Many of Apple's rivals in streaming music and video, such as Netflix Inc and Spotify Technology SA , avoid paying those commissions by asking users to sign up with a credit card outside the App Store. Spotify said Apple's practices hurt its business by making it harder for iPhone users to sign up for Spotify instead of Apple Music and filed an antitrust complaint last year in the European Union.

Biotech Stocks & ETFs to Gain on Progress in COVID-19 Vaccine Development

The rampant race to introduce a vaccine for the COVID-19 is creating near-term opportunities, making the biotech sector a lucrative space for investments.

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) Stock Moves -1.58%: What You Should Know

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) closed the most recent trading day at $54.86, moving -1.58% from the previous trading session.

Shell Oil (RDS.A) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

Shell Oil (RDS.A) closed the most recent trading day at $35.30, moving +1.18% from the previous trading session.

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg: 'We're in the business of small business'

Yahoo Finance’s Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer sat down with Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, to discuss how the tech giant is supporting small businesses with grant funding and online training.