Tuesday 31st March 2020

As anticipated Scott Morrison has launched a massive job retention program, telling companies to hang on to their workers, because they’ll need them on the other side. It helped equities yesterday, but that doesn’t explain the rise in the US and Europe. NAB’s Ray Attrill says we can expect a bit of rebalancing of portfolios at the month end, which might also account for the fall in Australian government bond yields (the opposite of what you’d expect after a massive government stimulus announcement). There’s further discussion on COVID-19, the price of oil and the expectation that China’s official PMI’s will show a strong recovery in figures out today. Plus, when all this is over, could the EU face another existential crisis?