President Trump, coronavirus task force deliver update on COVID-19 response
Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman joins the On The Move panel to weigh in on the latest coronavirus developments.
Video Transcript
JULIE HYMAN: But I do want to bring in our Rick Newman, who is monitoring that along with me. Rick, what did you make of the president's comments there? Did you catch anything that I didn't in terms of any new developments today?
RICK NEWMAN: I think you got it right. He spent some time talking about new border restrictions. Frankly, this seems to be about priority number 73 at this point. He did say they are going to turn to the Defense Department try to get some supplies there, but it's not clear how effective that's likely to be.
I just want to remind everybody the most important thing here is more testing. And I looked up the stats on this today. So far, the United States ranks seventh in terms of the total number of tests we've been able to conduct.
We are behind Russia and the United Arab Emirates on that. And when you adjust for population, the United States ranks 22nd in terms of testing. I think the bigger news today is not really from Washington-- Washington, but it's from New York, where most of us are and Governor Cuomo saying anybody who works in a nonessential business just needs to stay home, following the lead of California.
That is probably the most shocking news of the day. It looks to me like the S&P 500 turned from positive to negative on that news. But, you know, months down the road, that is the type of measure that might help arrest the spread of this virus sooner rather than later.
JULIE HYMAN: Rick, as you noted, we're seeing stocks turn lower now. The S&P is off by 2%. So it's at the lows of the session. The Dow and the NASDAQ are also negative.
And we've been seeing crude oil's declines accelerate throughout the day. Right now it's down by about 8%. As you mentioned in some of the other headlines and measures that we're seeing taken today, California is effectively shut down with a statewide shelter in place in effect.
In New York, Governor Cuomo is taking many of the same measures. Although, he's not calling it a shelter in place. Effective Sunday evening, all employees, will be asked all nonessential employees will be asked to stay at home. So that's what's happening on that front. Rick, also wanted to ask you about what's going on at this point with Congress. It seems like majority leader Mitch McConnell has really been pushing for speed on this reportedly to get a vote on the latest aid package as soon as Monday.
RICK NEWMAN: We're going to have bailouts. And they're going to be large. And there will be checks for individuals. That part seems certain.
There are some big disagreements, however, about what those bailouts will entail. So will the US government end up taking an ownership stake in companies where it gets bailouts? A sort of half measure is that those companies could issue warrants to the US government. And it could buy a stake in the future at a predetermined price.
So that actually gives US taxpayers, you know, a stake in the outcome and a return once this is all over. I think we're going to see something along those lines just to make sure taxpayers don't get ripped off. And then what kind of conditions are going to be put on these companies that accept federal money?
This is a big point of differentiation between Democrats and Republicans right now. So you're hearing Democrats say, any company that takes taxpayer money, no executive bonuses for a couple of years, no share buybacks for some period of time, and you got to protect your employees, keep most of your payroll in place. Republicans favor less strict conditions, such as those, but this all seems to be moving toward some fairly severe conditions on companies that get these bailouts. And that would be a big difference from the bailouts in 2008 and 2009.
