SQUAWK BOX, MONDAY 18TH MAY, 2020

Pandemic problems… Japan slips into recession for the first time in nearly 5 years as the country’s Q1 GDP data shrinks by 3.4 per cent. In the U.S., Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says that a vaccine is key to economic recovery while Fitch downgrades France’s credit rating to negative due to depressed productivity and a widening deficit. FCA has been permitted to apply for a €6.3bn credit line from the Italian government in a bid to shore up its balance sheet ahead of the merger with PSA. Alibaba founder Jack Ma resigns from the board of Softbank after 13 years while Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund buys up almost $8bn of U.S. and European blue-chip companies.