US stock markets have gained at the opening bell on Wall Street - matching the positivity seen outside of Asia today as investors bet on recovery.

Here are the early moves:

• S&P 500 UP 28.84 POINTS, OR 0.96%, AT 3,020.61 AFTER MARKET OPEN
• DOW JONES UP 350.69 POINTS, OR 1.40%, AT 25,345.80 AFTER MARKET OPEN
  
• NASDAQ UP 14.73 POINTS, OR 0.16%, AT 9,354.95 AFTER MARKET OPEN

And secondly (but more importantly), there is a lot more detail on the EU’s €750bn recovery fund, helping the euro gain.

Here are some of the details released by the European commission. It is quite a shopping list.

Direct investments

• A new recovery and resilience facility of €560bn will offer financial support for investments and reforms, with €310bn in grants and €250bn available in loans - with aid to be concentrated in the worst affected regions.
• A €55bn top-up of the cohesion policy programmes between now and 2022 under the new REACT-EU initiative targeting places with high youth unemployment.
• Another €40bn for the just transition fund, to help the move towards climate neutrality.
• €15bn for the European agricultural fund for rural development.

Public-private investments

• A new solvency support instrument with a budget of €31bn, aiming to support “viable European companies”.
• Upgrade InvestEU, to a level of €15.3bn to mobilise private investment in EU projects.

Health investments

• A new health programme, EU4Health, to prepare for future health crises with a budget of €9.4bn.
• €2bn more for rescEU, the EU’s crisis fighting fund.
• €94.4bn for Horizon Europe, funding research in health, resilience and the green and digital transitions.
• An extra €16.5bn for external action, including humanitarian aid.

The euro has gained further against the pound: sterling is down by 0.7% for the day, at €1.1153. Against the dollar the pound is also down by 0.3% at $1.2290.

First up: The latest Brexit news may not have helped sterling, with continued tough talk from the UK’s chief negotiator, David Frost.

The prime minister’s spokesman also stood by the government’s line that the transition period will end at 31 December. A trade deal or an extension is needed by the end of June to avoid trade defaulting overnight to World Trade Organisation terms.

Frost said the EU mandate for negotiations agreed by member states would not allow a deal as it currently stands.

With the clock ticking, Frost said talks are at a relatively early stage, and that the Covid-19 illness (that hit the UK and EU governments) had lost them a week or two of time.

The positive mood on the FTSE 100 has strengthened: top riser Melrose has now gained 21%, helping the index to a 1.5% increase at lunchtime in London.

A reminder: Melrose’s GKN aerospace and engineering subsidiary has been hard-hit by the crisis. But the flip side of that is that shares could be sensitive to signs that the damage won’t be as bad.

The same is true of cruise ship operator Carnival, whose shares have now gained 17% today.

Engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce, which is making swingeing job cuts in anticipation of lower demand, has gained 14%. Its outlook could improve if people return to flying sooner rather than later.

Guarantor loans provider Amigo has been forced to disclose a takeover approach after its majority shareholder refused to discuss the potential sale.

Amigo, which has faced criticism over its high-cost loans for generally poorer customers, said an unnamed party had made an offer to buy it for 20.9p per share - less than its price of 22.15p on Wednesday afternoon.

The company put itself up for sale in January after a regulatory crackdown hit its business model and multiple executives left.

Founder James Benamor’s Richmond Group controls 61% of the company, meaning a sale would be impossible without his consent. Amigo said:

Despite attempts to discuss the Potential Offer with Richmond Group, Amigo has been unable to engage constructively and ascertain Richmond Group’s willingness or not to accept the Potential Offer.

Amigo said it had shown forbearance - relaxing repayment schedules - for 42,000 customers during the lockdown so far. The company had a cash balance of over £115m as of 25 May, it said.

It has also agreed with the regulator to work through a backlog of complaints that have arisen during the course of 2020.

Shops and restaurants are reopening some of their operations, with McDonald’s and Nando’s among the latest companies to make announcements.

John Lewis has said it will start a phased return to high street shopping by reopening two stores in Poole and Kingston upon Thames on 15 June, followed by 11 more three days later, writes the Guardian’s Sarah Butler:

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has also got involved, tweeting that chicken restaurant Nando’s reopening is “the good news we’ve all been waiting for” - although the responses to his message suggest that some people are more focused on the continued fallout from the saga of Dominic Cummings’ repeated breaking of lockdown rules.

The story continues to roll on through the sublime, to the ridiculous, to the even more ridiculous.

You can follow more on the reaction to Cummings’ multiple trips and the extraordinary press conference on the UK coronavirus live blog:

In total the coronavirus government support for UK workers has come to £21.8bn, if you add together the money paid for furloughed employees and income support for self-employed workers.

More than 10m British workers have been given some form of income support, if furlough numbers are added to those who have claimed self-employed support*.

That would represent about a third of all workers being given income support, based on pre-lockdown data from the Office for National Statistics showing 33.1m people in employment in the UK.

The total cost of battling the crisis will be much higher, thanks to the loans and grants given to businesses.

The effects on the Exchequer will be even more pronounced because of the drops in income tax and corporation tax paid. At the same time, the government has had to step in to cover public services, with little signs of appetite for spending reductions from chancellor Rishi Sunak.

Economists expect borrowing to remain high relative to GDP for a considerable period, according to a regular poll carried out by the Treasury.

While GDP growth is expected to snap back in 2021, annual borrowing by 2024 will still be close to £100bn, according to the economists’ average expectations.

*This post has been corrected to remove the suggestion furloughed employees could also claim self-employed income support.

More struggles for the British property sector:

British Land, which owns shopping centres including Sheffield’s Meadowhall and Drake Circus in Plymouth, has written down the value of its retail portfolio by more than a quarter due to the impact of the coronavirus.

The government’s implementation of a nationwide lockdown in late March helped push the company, which also owns office properties in London, to a £1.1bn loss for the year to the end of March. This compares with a loss of £320m the previous year.

You can read the full report here:

For keen FTSE watchers, the latest reshuffle could be a big one. The top companies will be decided based on market value at the close of business on Tuesday.

EasyJet and Carnival are - perhaps unsurprisingly - most at risk of falling from the blue-chip index, while British Gas owner Centrica and aerospace manufacturer Meggitt are also looking likely, according to handy analysis by AJ Bell.

If there were to be four demotions it would be the most movement since March 2016.

Russ Mould, investment director at investing platform AJ Bell, said:

Despite their latest sharp rallies, easyJet and Carnival are still very likely to lose their FTSE 100 status in the latest quarterly reshuffle, thanks to the even bigger falls seen during the spring as their revenues dwindled to pretty much zero. Centrica and Meggitt also look destined for the drop, as their market capitalisations leave them ranked way below the 110^th place cut-off.

Avast, Homeserve, GVC and Convatec look the most likely names to take their places but Kingfisher, Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust, B&M European Value Retail and Direct Line are all jockeying for position and sudden gains in their share prices could yet vault them into the UK’s premier index. The most at risk of demotion then would be ITV and M&G.

The FTSE 100 has accelerated: London’s benchmark share index is now up by 1.2%.

The gains look to be fairly broad-based, with cyclical companies (whose fortunes largely depend on the health of the broader economy) such as banks among the biggest risers.

Melrose, the owner of engineering group GKN, is top of the index, up by 10% - in a sign that some of the companies worst affected by the crisis may be rebounding. Also in that category: Carnival, the second-biggest riser.

The mid-cap FTSE 250 has gained 1.6%.

Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary has said the airline could cut fewer than the 3,000 jobs previously announced after some workers agreed pay cuts.

Between 25% and 30% of cabin crew and pilots across Europen have agreed pay cuts, he said, speaking to Irish radio station Newstalk.

However, he said that the company could make up to half of crew and pilots in Dublin redundant, as he tried to put pressure on unions - mirroring disputes across the European aviation sector.

Most planes are still grounded but the Ryanair boss said he was “reasonably confident” the airlien could get 50% to 60% of its seats filled by July after a “big surge” in bookings from the UK and Ireland to Portugal, Spain and Italy. O’Leary expects to fly 75m to 80m passengers this year, against pre-pandemic targets of 150m.

Fast fashion retailer Boohoo has published a fairly detailed rebuttal after shares fell heavily yesterday following a short seller attack.

Hedge fund Shadowfall published a research note saying that the online retailer was exaggerating its cash flow.

Wednesday’s Boohoo statement said:

The group strongly refutes the allegations made in the research note

The company also said it saw a number of opportunities to buy rivals after it raised £197m in a recent share placing.

Halfords is to fully reopen 53 stores after a successful trial of physical-distancing measures on its shop floors.

The bike and car parts retailer said that the reopenings follow successful tests at its Peterborough and Bristol Cribbs Causeway stores. It will be the first time Halfords customers will be allowed in store since the UK lockdown started on 23 March. Among the sites reopening are Gloucester, Huddersfield, Inverness and North Shields.

The physical-distancing measures being implemented include queuing marshals outside stores, “sneeze screens” for shoppers and staff and customers being asked not to handle or try on products. The decision comes a day after the government said most non-essential retailers could reopen from 15 June.

You can read the full report here:

Corner shops and independent grocers have seen a 63% surge in trade as shoppers turn to local stores during the coronavirus crisis.

Sales at independently owned retailers, many of which trade under brand names such as Spar, Londis and Budgens, soared by more than double the pace of the fastest growing grocery chain, the Co-op, where sales rose 30.6% in the three months to 17 May according to the latest grocery market data from analysts Kantar, writes the Guardian’s Sarah Butler.

Some more info from Kantar:

• Take-home grocery sales grew by 14.3% during the past 12 weeks, the fastest rate since 1994. However, supermarkets will have felt the effect of a reduction in sales of on-the-go meals, snacks and drinks which total £1 billion in normal times.
  
• Online grocery sales were 75% higher than a year ago, with nearly one in five households placing an order in the most recent four weeks.

Fraser McKevitt of Kantar said:

Shoppers and retailers are now thinking about what the impact of a less restrictive lockdown will be, and a phased re-opening of non-essential retail and the out-of-home food and drink sector will have a significant impact on grocery sales in the coming months.

However, with plans for reopening the hospitality sector still uncertain, we are currently projecting that extra meals, snacks and drinks consumed at home will mean take-home sales at the grocers could be up 12% over the course of 2020 as a whole.

The chief executive of Hammerson has announced he will step down, adding to the troubles of the shopping centre owner that is struggling with the pandemic’s impact on the retail sector.

David Atkins will remain at the struggling property group until spring 2021 as the company searches for a successor.

The company, which owns the Bullring in Birmingham and Brent Cross in London, has been deluged with requests for rent deferrals, cuts or waivers during the coronavirus pandemic.

Atkins, who has been with the company more than a decade, said:

The current environment, exacerbated by the impact of Covid 19, is undoubtedly the most challenging we have faced as a business. I feel now is the right time to search for a new chief executive, a person who can not only lead the business as we emerge from this period, but also into its next chapter.

As expected, European shares have gained at the opening bell.

The FTSE 100 is up by 0.6%, while the more UK-focused FTSE 250 has gained 0.8% in early trades.

The broad European Stoxx 600 has gained 0.2%, with Germany’s Dax and France’s Cac 40 up 0.3% apiece.