Stocks turn positive after Fed says it will keep stimulus coming for years: June 10, 2020

A surge in demand has forced MGM Resorts (MGM) to reopen some Las Vegas resorts and casinos earlier than anticipated.

The Luxor will reopen on June 25, followed by Aria and Mandalay Bay (including its Four Seasons) on July 1. Bellagio, MGM Grand and New York-New York opened earlier this month and the Excalibur reopens Thursday.

Reopening dates for Park MGM (and the NoMad tucked on top), Mirage, Vdara and the Delano towers, which is part of Mandalay Bay, have not yet been announced.

"We are eager to get more of our employees back to work and enhance the Las Vegas experience with additional resorts," Bill Hornbuckle, MGM Resorts' acting CEO, said in a press release.

The global economy is plunging into the worst peacetime recession in a century, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The Paris-based agency said Wednesday it expects the global economy to contract 6% this year before rebounding in 2021, a prediction that ranks among the gloomiest offered by multilateral financial institutions. And it warned that a second wave of coronavirus infections would lead to even more disruption and economic scarring.

The World Bank forecast earlier this week that global output would shrink 5.2% in 2020, while the International Monetary Fund estimated a 3% contraction in April.

Read more here.

America is in a recession, but this downturn is unlike any the country has ever seen.

There was no boom and bust, no bubble that burst, no shocking attack on our shores. Rather, the government flipped the off switch on the economy in March to limit the spread of Covid-19 infections.

People stayed home, businesses shuttered, millions of workers were laid off, and economic activity ground to a halt. This recession is more "man made" than any before it.

Now economists wonder whether the economy can as easily be switched back on. Predictions about the future are more difficult in these unprecedented times, making it harder for policy makers to gauge how much stimulus is needed to get the country through the downturn.

This became abundantly clear in last week's jobs report, for which economists had predicted 8 million lost jobs. Instead 2.5 million jobs were gained, the largest number on record, blowing all forecasts out of the water.

But can a recession and record jobs growth coexist simultaneously? Economists think the answer is yes. After all, a recovery needs more than one positive data point.

Read the full analysis here.

US stock futures are mixed ahead of the Federal Reserve's meeting at 2 pm ET.

Here's where things stand this morning:

AMC Theatres, the world's largest movie theater owner, announced Tuesday that it is planning to reopen its 1,000 theaters around the world next month.

The chain, which closed all its locations March 17 because of the coronavirus pandemic, said in its first quarter earnings report Tuesday that it expects "to be fully open globally in July."

That includes reopening theaters in the United States and the United Kingdom. 

AMC (AMC) shares rose 4% in premarket trading. Read more here.

Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank  (SFTBY) just conducted voluntary Covid-19 antibody tests on more than 44,000 employees, their families, clients and outside medical professionals such as doctors and dentists.

The company says it is the largest such test by a Japanese company.

To combat another possible wave of cases,"various tests are needed to ensure the safety of our employees and society, so that we can find an exit strategy as quickly as possible," said SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son during a live streaming event on Tuesday.

He cautioned that a vaccine for the virus might not be able to be mass produced until "the middle of next year."

Read more here.