April was a good month for Europe’s stock markets, despite a late wobble today.

The Stoxx 600 index gained 6.2% this month, its best monthly gain since October 2015 (after the Greek debt crisis finally eased). Germany’s DAX gained over 9% this month.

Shares in Zoom have dropped over 6% today, after the video-conferencing services admitted it wasn’t quite as popular as thought...

Zoom had initially said it had 300 million daily users, following the surge in remote working. But, it actually has 300 million daily meeting participants.

The difference? Some regular users will be counted as multiple ‘participants if they take part in more than one call per day.

Despite today’s declines, April has still been a very strong month for the markets.

America’s S&P 500 index has gained almost 13%, trimming its losses for the year to 9%.

The US jobs report for April is released a week tomorrow. But we already know it will be grim, thanks to the weekly initial jobs claims numbers.

Capital Economists estimate that America’s unemployment rate has surged to at least 15% this month, wiping out twice as many jobs as were created over the last decade.

We estimate that non-farm payroll employment fell by between 20 and 25 million in April, with the unemployment rate surging to between 15% and 20%.

That would be an unprecedented loss of jobs in a single month, equating to more than double the total decline in employment during and after the financial crisis.

Crumbs, the FTSE 100 has now lost 200 points for the day, a loss of over 3%.... Still 30 minutes of trading in which to recover (or get worse).

The Covid-19 pandemic continues to hurt the travel sector badly too.

TUI has cancelled holiday trips due to start on or before June 11, meaning disappointment for one million hopeful holidaymakers.

Britain’s economy has suffered another blow -- high street retailers Oasis and Warehouse are shutting, with the loss of 1,800 jobs:

Just in: America’s central bank is expanding one of its many new programmes to help the US economy ride out the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Federal Reserve is expanding the scope and eligibility for the Main Street Lending Program -- which is meant to help small firms access affordable credit, and stop viable companies going bust.

The Fed says it is responding to more than 2,200 suggestions of how to improve the programme.

It says:

More than 2,200 letters from individuals, businesses, and nonprofits were received. In response to the public input, the Board decided to expand the loan options available to businesses, and increased the maximum size of businesses that are eligible for support under the program.

The changes include:

• Creating a third loan option, with increased risk sharing by lenders for borrowers with greater leverage;
• Lowering the minimum loan size for certain loans to $500,000; and
• Expanding the pool of businesses eligible to borrow.

All the main American and European stock markets are firmly in the red today - risk is firmly off the menu:

Bank shares are falling across the eurozone following Christine Lagarde’s press conference.

Traders have noted her gloomy forecasts -- the possibility that the eurozone shrinks by an unprecedented 15% in the April-June quarter. The deeper the recession, and the slower the recovery, then the longer it will be until monetary conditions can ever normalise.

There’s also some disappointment that the ECB hasn’t boosted the size of its new PEPP stimulus package, or decided to start buying junk-rated bonds (yet anyway)....

Stocks have dropped at the start of trading in New York too.

The Dow Jones industrial average has dropped 301 points at the open, down 1.2% at 24,332. There’s not much sign of the optimism that lifted shares so strongly in April.

Back in Frankfurt, Christine Lagarde is insisting that the ECB has plenty of firepower.

Lagarde says the Governing Council did not discuss whether to buy junk-rated bonds under its asset purchase scheme, or whether to extend its new PELTRO loan programme beyond banks.

But her main message is that the ECB “will not accept any risk of fragmentation” in the euro area.

She also points out that there is €3trn of credit available to banks at negative rates:

Oof! U.S. personal spending has plummeted in March by the most on record.

Household spending slumped by 7.5% last month, which is the worst since the Commerce Department started counting in 1959. That’s rather worse than the 5.1% decline expected.

It shows that the horrifying surge in US unemployment, and the widespread shutdown of the economy, has had a serious (if predictable) impact on America’s economy.

Christine Lagarde hammers home the point, telling reporters that the coronavirus pandemic has “literally halted economic activity across the globe”.

The hard economic data is only just starting to emerge, she points out.

The ECB president then reveals that her economists think the eurozone could shrink by 15% in the current quarter.

Lagarde also warns that policymakers still don’t know how the pandemic is going to play out.

The ECB has resisted making any major moves today.

Significantly, it has not increased the size of its new €750bn asset purchase scheme (the pandemic emergency purchase programme, or PEPP), which buys bonds and other assets to stimulate the economy. It has also not widened the programme to include junk-rated bonds.

Instead, the ECB says:

The Governing Council is fully prepared to increase the size of the PEPP and adjust its composition, by as much as necessary and for as long as needed.

Here’s some early reaction to the European Central Bank making its emergency loans package even more generous, to try to help banks lend to the economy.

Britain will spend more than £100bn this financial year trying to repair the damage caused by the coronavirus, according to the latest estimates.

The Office for Budget Responsibility is tracking chancellor Rishi Sunak’s various pledges - from the jobs retention scheme to business rate relief. And it currently estimates that the total bill is £105bn, with Sunak’s furloughing scheme costing £49bn alone (although the Treasury should get £10bn back in tax)

However, this estimate doesn’t cover the government’s loan guarantee schemes, or the cost of taking over Britain’s rail franchises. The details are here.

European stock markets have turned south, after another morning of bleak economic data.

In London, the FTSE 100 is down 81 points or 1.3% at 60330, handing back half of yesterday’s rally.

Royal Dutch Shell, the biggest company on the index, is doing the most damage - down 7% after sharply cutting its dividend.

Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC are both down around 0.3%.

Yesterday’s rally was attributed to hopes that lockdowns would ease soon, and the Covid-19 treatments were coming down the line too. But, there are now reports that the UK will maintain its lockdown until June...

I missed this earlier, sorry, but Austria’s economy has also been hit by the pandemic.

Austrian GDP shrank by 2.5% in the first quarter of 2020. That’s not as bad as France, Spain and Italy, but still puts Austria halfway into recession.

While we’re playing catch-up, Belgium’s GDP came out yesterday, and showed a sharp contraction of 3.9%.

Recessions are bleak things. They typically mean rising unemployment, more company failures, a rise in bad debts, falling asset prices and widespread gloom and despair.

But this time, they also mean that the Covid-19 lockdown measures are being followed.

This chart from Oliver Rakau of Oxford Economics shows how the countries who have imposed the toughest restrictions have suffered the biggest drop in GDP this quarter (although we don’t yet have growth figures for Germany or the UK).

Ouch! The Covid-19 lockdown has wiped out all Italy’s growth since the eurozone crisis, and more!

Oxford Economics’ Nicola Nobile reckons Italy’s economy has now shrunk back to its lowest level since the early 2000s:

Today’s GDP data only gives us an early sighter of the dark slump which Europe’s economy is falling into.

Economists predict another historic contraction in April-June, as the full force of the Covid-19 lockdowns hit growth.

The eurozone economy is shrinking even faster than feared, according to Reuters:

The eurozone economy contracted at a record rate and by more than expected in the first three months of the year and inflation slowed sharply as much economic activity in March came to a halt because of the COVID-19 pandemic, data showed on Thursday.

According to a preliminary flash estimate of the European Union’s statistics office Eurostat economic output in the 19 countries sharing the euro in January-March was 3.8% smaller than in the previous three months -- the sharpest quarterly decline since the time series started in 1995.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 3.5% contraction after a 0.1% quarterly growth in the last three months of 2019.

Year-on-year the gross domestic product contraction was 3.3% in the first quarter.

Here’s a reminder of this morning’s dire French growth figures (for those who weren’t wide awake at 6.30am)

Today’s woeful French and Spanish growth figures will have dampened the mood as the European Central Bank holds its monetary policy meeting today.

Sebastien Clements, currency analyst at international payments company OFX, says ECB chief Christine Lagarde and colleagues will be worried about the future.

“Not the ideal start to the day for President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, as both Spanish and French quarterly GDP figures came in at least 1% off the forecasted mark. It won’t be the figure itself that causes a headache, but rather the potential of what may follow…

“Lagarde has already laid her cards on the table with the bulk of the zone’s stimulus options having been delivered in the form of PEPP implementation and collateral loosening, but her job is not yet done. With its back against the wall, is now a good time for the ECB to get ahead of the curve and inject some investor confidence in the form of maintaining a stable monetary position? Just this morning, I spoke with a client at a UK food distributor who has decided to close their European entity and set up in Asia for the sake of supply side ease, cost cutting and licensing issues.”

Newsflash: A quarter of UK businesses currently trading say that their turnover has more than halved this month.

That’s according to the Office for National Statistics, which has just published its latest ‘faster indicators’ of the pandemic’s impact on the economy.

It confirms that some businesses are being hit extremely hard by the lockdown, which is likely to push Britain into a desperately painful recession.

Here are some key points from the report, which is online here.

• 1 in 4 (24%) of surveyed businesses in the UK continuing to trade reported that their turnover had decreased by more than half the normal level, in the period 6 April to 19 April 2020.
• The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was the most popular government scheme applied for, with 66% of all responding businesses, whether continuing to trade or pausing trade in the latest wave, applying.
• Over 8 in 10 adults (84%) in Great Britain said they had either not left their home or only left for the permitted reasons (essential shopping, medical reasons, one form of daily exercise and key workers travelling to work) in the past seven days, for the Opinions and Lifestyle (OPN) Survey period 9 April to 20 April; a similar proportion to last week.
• The most common reasons for key worker parents not sending their children to school was the availability of alternative care and being concerned about the health and well-being of the child.

These chart from Danske Bank’s Aila Mihr show how Germany’s unemployment total swelled alarmingly this month:

A boom in disinfectant sales has benefited Reckitt Benckiser, which makes Dettol and Lysol.

The company has ramped up production of its cleaning products and produced a year’s worth of hand sanitiser in May alone. This resulted in 13.3% growth in like-for-like sales in the first three months of the year. Customers also snapped up Reckitt’s flu medicine Mucinex and painkiller Nurofen.

The firm now expects its annual sales to be better than it expected in February, when it forecast sales growth greater than last year’s 0.8% rise.

Laxman Narasimhan, RB’s chief executive, said there was some evidence of pantry loading which would unwind, but it also looks like there are long-lasting changes in consumer behaviour.

“People want cleaner surfaces at home. They are cleaning more, washing more … Some behaviour becomes quite ingrained. There is a reinforcement of hygiene as a basis of health.”

Reckitt also said sales of Durex condoms declined in some countries, such as the UK and Italy. Narasimhan put this down to increased anxiety - worries about money and jobs.

Back in the UK, the boss of Sainsbury’s supermarket has predicted that disruption from the coronavirus outbreak will last until at least mid-September.

CEO Mike Coupe reckons that physically distanced queues are likely to remain “for the foreseeable future”, dampening hopes of an early end to lockdown restrictions.

Shares in Royal Dutch Shell have tumbled 7% this morning after it disappointed investors by slashing its dividend by two thirds.

CEO Ben van Buerden defended the move as a “prudent” response to the “extremely challenging conditions” caused by Covid-19, with oil prices tumbling this year.

Van Buerden said:

“Given the continued deterioration in the macroeconomic outlook and the significant mid- and long-term uncertainty, we are taking further prudent steps to bolster our resilience, underpin the strength of our balance sheet and support the long-term value creation of Shell.

This move, though, breaks a “decades-long taboo against cutting shareholder returns”, writes my colleague Jillian Ambrose.

[There’s an argument that Shell’s share price shouldn’t fall - as the company is actually more valuable now its retaining this cash. Shareholders rarely see things this way, though]

France’s fall into recession hasn’t dampened the mood on the Paris stock market,

The CAC 40 index of leading French companies jumped by 0.9% in early trading to 4,711 points - a seven-week high.

Germany’s market has also rallied, but the picture is mixed elsewhere - with Britain’s FTSE 100 and Italy’s FTSE MIB both lower (after a strong rise yesterday).

The latest economic data from China shows that its recovery from the pandemic is being hit by weakness abroad.

China’s official manufacturing PMI (which measures activity in the sector) dropped to 50.8 for April from 52 in March. That shows less growth, as a reading of 50 indicates stagnation.

A rival survey from media group Caixin is gloomier -- its Chinese manufacturing PMI fell back ito contraction, at 49.4 (from 50.1).

Both surveys reported that Chines factory production had picked up this month. But Caixin also reports a slump in exports, with orders dropping at the fastest pace since the 2008 crisis.

French bank SocGen has posted a surprise loss, and set aside €820m to cover bad loans - in another sign that Covid-19 is hurting France’s economy.

SocGen also suffered trading losses during the market mayhem of the last quarter. Bloomberg has heard that its traders came unstuck on some dividend futures contracts....

France’s grim growth figures are a clear sign that Europe is entering its deepest recession of the postwar era, says Bloomberg.

The economy shrank 5.8%, the most since records began in 1949. The slump shows the dramatic effect of government-ordered shutdowns as just two weeks of closures and restrictions were sufficient to snuff out growth for the entire quarter. Figures for the euro area later on Thursday will probably show the end of a seven-year expansion, and worse is still to come as confinement has continued for the past month.

The virus outbreak has plunged economies across the globe into a tumult that was unthinkable at the start of the year. China’s economy shrank for the first time in decades in the first quarter and the U.S. saw its record expansion come to an end. The IMF expects the global economy to shrink 3% this year, with the euro area dropping 7.5%.

Spain and Italy both report first quarter GDP data later on Thursday, and the European Central Bank announces its latest policy decision.

The French economy is already in a technical recession after a small 0.1% contraction at the end of 2019. In the first quarter 2020, consumer spending dropped more than 6%, and investment plunged 11.8%, statistics office Insee said.

A 5.8% plunge in GDP is really, really bad.

As Frederik Ducrozet of Pictet Wealth Management shows here, it wipes out several years of French growth:

Here’s more reaction to France’s plunge into recession this morning.

France’s economy shrank even faster than economists predicted, Reuters points out:

The first quarter contraction was the biggest on a quarterly basis since World War II, surpassing the previous record of -5.3% in the second quarter of 1968 when France was gripped by civil unrest, mass student protests and general strikes.

The slump even exceeded most economists’ expectations, which on average were for -3.5%, although estimates in Reuters poll went as low as -7%.

This chart from INSEE’s growth report shows just how sharply France’s economy shrank:

This table shows the details, including a 6.1% tumble in consumer spending and an 11.8% drop in business investment (or ‘gross fixed capital formation’).