SQUAWK BOX, THURSDAY 9TH APRIL, 2020

Stocks end the week in the green, with the Dow and S&P 500 gaining more than 10 per cent during the period. The Dow crossed the 23,000-point mark late in the session following news that Democrat Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has decided to drop out of the race clearing the way for Joe Biden. The latest FOMC minutes show Fed officials believe the U.S. economic outlook is ‘profoundly uncertain’ and plan to keep rates near zero until the Coronavirus impact is weathered. Crude prices jump on hopes of an Opec+ agreement on output cuts on Thursday. In corporate news, Disney is enjoying a jump of 50m subscribers to its streaming service as a direct effect of the outbreak while coffee giant Starbucks is warning it will see a 50 per cent slump in Q2 earnings. Across Europe, countries are bracing for lockdown extensions as health officials say the peak of the virus has not yet been reached.