Stocks close out April with their best monthly gains since 1987: April 30, 2020

Credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's has cut Boeing's credit rating to BBB-, the lowest rating it can have before its debt topples into junk-bond status.

"Boeing's earnings and cash flow over the next few years are likely to be lower than we had previously expected due to the impact of the coronavirus on aircraft demand, with the pace of recovery in air travel still highly uncertain," said S&P in the downgrade note.

It is the lowest rating on Boeing's debt since 1981. Boeing has never had its debt judged to be so risky that it considered "speculative" or "not investment grade," the technical names for junk bond status.

"Certainly, we'd prefer to stay investment grade. And again, I think we're taking all the right actions to try to maintain that," said Boeing CFO Greg Smith when asked about the risk of Boeing falling into junk bond status after the company announced a $1.7 billion core operating loss in the first quarter on Wednesday.

Boeing added $11.6 billion in long-term debt during the first quarter to increase the cash it has on hand to weather the current crisis, which has seen airlines cancel or delay orders for new planes from Boeing and rival Airbus. The cost of its future borrow could go up due to this downgrade, and it could go up significantly more if its debt is downgraded again into junk bond status.

SoftBank is warning that it will fall deeper into the red, just two weeks after it shocked investors by forecasting a record annual loss.

The Japanese company on Thursday widened its forecast for a net loss in the year ended in March from 750 billion to 900 billion yen ($7 billion to $8.4 billion).

The firm said it expects to lose 700 billion yen ($6.6 billion) on a portion of its investment in the troubled coworking provider WeWork that it holds outside of its $100 billion Vision Fund.

Earlier this month, SoftBank said it would post a record annual operating loss of 1.35 trillion yen ($12.6 billion) — the worst in at least 20 years, according to the data provider Refinitiv — as bets in the Vision Fund turned sour. The company said Thursday that forecast remains unchanged.

Shares of SoftBank (SFTBF) closed 2.45% higher in Tokyo, in line with the broader Nikkei 225 (N225).

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Investors are bracing for another round of earnings and a brutal jobless claims number that could amount to 3.5 million.

Here's where futures stand at 6:15 am ET:

Stocks finished higher Wednesday.

Another painful look at initial jobless claims is expected today.

Thursday's unemployment report is expected to show that another 3.5 million Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits in the week ended April 25, according to economists polled by Refinitiv.

That would be the sixth-straight weekly report with claims in the millions. So far, 26.5 million people have filed first-time claims since mid-March. Before the coronavirus crisis, weekly claims sat around the 200,000 mark.

If the report hits the predicted 3.5 million, it would be the fourth straight week that claims have fallen since peaking at 6.9 million in the last week of March. Economists say that is a good sign.

Still, next week's jobs report is expected to show the US unemployment rate surging to 14%. How high the jobless rate can go and how long it will take to come down again will depend on the shape and pace of the economic recovery.

Europe's deep recession has begun, triggered by the introduction of measures to contain the coronavirus.

Preliminary data published on Thursday showed that EU GDP shrank by 3.5% in the first quarter of 2020 versus the final quarter of last year when the region's economy was still expanding. Compared with the first quarter of 2019, the fall was 2.7%.

Economic output in the 19 countries that use the euro shrank by 3.8% in the January to March period.

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Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) has slashed its dividend for the first time since World War II after profits were wiped out by a historic collapse in oil demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Anglo-Dutch firm, one of the world's largest oil companies, said in a statement Thursday that it will cut its quarterly dividend to 16 cents per share, from 47 cents previously. It posted a net loss of $24 million for the first quarter of 2020, compared with a profit of $6 billion in the same period a year ago.

Shares in the company plunged as much as 8% in London on Thursday morning.

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