Germany’s central bank has forecast the economy will slow while continuing to grow in the fourth quarter, as the impact of coronavirus-related restrictions on the services sector is partly offset by a resilient manufacturing sector.

California has become the first US state to confirm 900,000 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.

France is facing up to 100,000 cases a day as the coronavirus pandemic steers the nation into a “very difficult, or even critical situation”, the government’s chief medical adviser said.

Hasbro expressed confidence that strong demand for its board games, toys and Play-Doh among families ahead of the end of year holiday season would help maintain strong momentum into its final quarter, despite the worsening Covid-19 situation in Europe and the US.

Norway is imposing extra restrictions because of rising coronavirus infections as even one of the least affected European countries is forced to tighten its rules.

Peter Wells in New York

One dozen US states reported record levels of coronavirus hospitalisations on Monday in a further reflection of the autumn resurgence of the virus that has pushed average daily cases to the highest level since the pandemic began.

There are 42,917 people currently in hospitals across the country with coronavirus, according to Covid Tracking Project data, up from 41,776 on Sunday.

That is the highest level of hospitalisations since August 19 when the summer surge in sunbelt states had begun to abate.

There were 12 states that reported a record level of coronavirus patients on Monday, the highest number of states in a single day since mid-July, according to Financial Times analysis of Covid Tracking Project data.

Five of these — including election battleground states of Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin — are in the Midwest, while four — Idaho, Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming — are in the “Mountain” sub-region, reflecting the broadening spread of coronavirus through the interior of the US this autumn.

Collectively, states reported a further 62,315 new cases, according to Covid Tracking Project data, a five-day low. That was down from nearly 65,700 on Sunday and compared with 57,148 on Monday last week.

Thanks in part to back-to-back days of more than 83,000 cases — the two biggest daily increases in coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic — the seven-day average of new cases is now at a record of just over 69,800 a day.

As of Monday, half of all US states have reported a record seven-day average of new cases on any day during the past week, according to FT analysis of Covid Tracking Project data. That is the highest proportion of states in three months, when the pandemic was hitting sunbelt states hardest.

On Monday, Illinois (4,729), Texas (4,700 including new and historical cases) and Michigan (4,057, but catching up for no data reported on Sunday) reported the largest single-day increases among states.

Only Kansas (2,446 and reporting only once every few days) and Wyoming (423) reported single-day records for new cases.

California reported 2,981 new cases and became the first state to confirm 900,000 infections overall since the start of the pandemic.
Authorities attributed a further 389 deaths to coronavirus, up from 377 on Sunday and compared with 456 on Monday last week.

The seven-day average of fatalities is now about 806 a day — lower than the 1,000-plus a day rates during the height of the summer outbreak, but now around the highest level in about five weeks.

Alice Woodhouse in Hong Kong

Asia-Pacific stocks fell on Tuesday after Wall Street notched its worst day in a month as coronavirus cases surged in the US and Europe.

In Japan, the Topix was down 1.2 per cent, the Kospi in South Korea shed 0.9 per cent and the S&P/ASX 200 slipped 1.4 per cent in Australia.

Those moves came after the S&P 500 closed down 1.9 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite shed 1.6 per cent.

Rising case numbers in the northern hemisphere have highlighted the challenges ahead for the global economic recovery. Hopes of a stimulus package to support the US economy are also fading as the election nears.

S&P 500 futures were flat.

Alice Woodhouse in Hong Kong

The Australian state of Victoria reported no new coronavirus cases on Tuesday morning in the second consecutive day of zero infections allowing its premier to ease lockdown measures.

The state reported no new cases on Monday for the first time in over four months after a strict lockdown was imposed on Melbourne to limit the spread of the virus in July.

Daniel Andrews, Victoria’s premier, said restrictions in Melbourne would be eased from late on Tuesday, allowing people to leave their homes as they wish and permitting restaurants and pubs to reopen.

Anna Gross in London

The proportion of people in Britain with antibodies that protect against Covid-19 declined over the summer, according to research that adds to evidence that natural immunity can wane in a matter of months.

The number of people with antibodies fell by a quarter, from 6 per cent of the population in June to 4.4 per cent in September, according to a study of hundreds of thousands of people, one of the largest of its kind to date.

The results, from researchers at Imperial College London, are the latest sign that immunity to Covid-19 may be shortlived and cast further doubt on the idea that any population could develop herd immunity naturally.

The study suggests that the immune system’s response to the virus is similar to its reaction to influenza and other coronaviruses such as the common cold, which can be contracted annually.

Read more here

Edward White and Kang Buseong

The South Korean economy contracted again in the third quarter, despite rising exports of computer chips and cars.

Compared to the same period a year earlier gross domestic product in Asia’s fourth-biggest economy shrank 1.3 per cent in the three months to the end of September, according to preliminary data released on Tuesday by the Bank of Korea.

While failing to return to growth, the contraction was smaller than the 2.7 per cent year-on-year fall reported in the second quarter when the fallout from the pandemic pushed the South Korean economy into recession.

Improving exports underpinned quarter-on-quarter growth in GDP of 1.9 per cent, helping to offset soft domestic consumption and investment.

South Korea’s leading tech manufacturers including Samsung, LG and SK Hynix, have all benefited from robust demand for greater connectivity during the pandemic, as well as strong demand from Huawei ahead of the latest US sanctions against the Chinese telecoms giant.

The government in Seoul has also won international praise for its swift deployment of mass testing and high-tech contact tracing and tough quarantine measures to combat the virus, ultimately helping to avoid lengthy city- or nation-wide lockdowns that continue to cripple many countries around the world.

Alex Holmes, emerging markets economist with Capital Economics, took an upbeat view that with South Korea’s recent second wave of coronavirus infections now fading, the recovery is set to continue.

“Overall, the economy is likely to contract by around 1.0 per cent in 2020. While this would be the worst performance since 1998, it would still make Korea one of the best performing economies this year,” Mr Holmes said, adding that “recent jumps in imports of manufacturing equipment suggest firms are expanding capacity”.

Alice Woodhouse in Hong Kong

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said she will travel to Beijing next week to discuss economic support for the territory following the hit from the pandemic.

Ms Lam delayed her policy address at short notice this month, saying she would visit Beijing to discuss assistance from the mainland to support Hong Kong’s economy.

Ms Lam said she would first travel to Shenzhen next Tuesday before continuing to Beijing for a three-day visit alongside five of her ministers. She did not give a detailed itinerary.

Hong Kong fell into recession in 2019 amid anti-government street protests, with the situation deteriorating further after the pandemic hit local activity and authorities effectively barred tourists to slow the spread of the virus.

Ms Lam noted that the local situation in terms of the virus was “stable” but expressed concern that four out of the five locally transmitted infections over the past week had no known source.

Her government is planning legislation on compulsory testing, which she said would focus on those with mild symptoms and high-risk groups or clusters of infections, in efforts to catch silent transmission of coronavirus in the community.

Preparations are also being made for a system to allow Hong Kong residents to upload coronavirus test results to meet requirements for the Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble. The same system can also be used when travel to the mainland reopens, Ms Lam said.

Yuan Yang in Beijing

New cases linked to China’s most recent outbreak in the heavily monitored region of Xinjiang diminished to 26 infections on Monday, all of which are asymptomatic, local authorities said.

On Sunday, 137 asymptomatic cases had been found in the city of Kashgar, all linked to one factory in Shufu district. Monday’s new cases were all close contacts of the previous cases, local authorities said.

The outbreak in Xinjiang is the biggest upset to China’s daily case count in months. The daily tally has mostly rested in the dozens since April.

But within a day of the first cases in Kashgar being found on Saturday, the local government started contact tracing and mass testing of the city, as well as closing down air and rail transport.

As of Monday afternoon, authorities had tested 4.5m of Kashgar’s 4.7m population, and had already received 2.1m test results. The local government pledged to test the remaining people by the end of Tuesday.

Medical experts told state media that the early test-and-trace measures had caught cases before they became symptomatic. The pattern of the outbreak mirrors the last one in China, which also occurred in Xinjiang, in July, when hundreds of asymptomatic cases were discovered in the region’s capital of Urumqi.

Over a million Uighur and other Muslim minorities are interred in mass camps in Xinjiang, leading to concerns that the virus could spread quickly through detention camps, many of which are based near Kashgar, the heartland of Uighur culture.

However, the first known cases in the most recent outbreak in Kashgar were among a family working in factories, with no apparent link to the camps.

Hudson Lockett in Hong Kong

Equities in much of the Asia-Pacific region fell following a sharp drop on Wall Street spurred by a record surge in new US coronavirus cases and the failure to agree on a new stimulus deal.

Japan’s benchmark Topix index fell 0.3 per cent on Tuesday, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dropped 1.6 per cent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.4 per cent in morning trading.

On Wall Street overnight, the S&P 500 fell as much as 2.9 per cent before paring losses to close down 1.9 per cent, marking its biggest daily loss in more than a month as coronavirus case numbers in the US rose sharply.

In Europe, Germany’s benchmark Dax index tumbled 3.7 per cent and the broader Stoxx 600 fell 1.8 per cent, as worries grew over the impact of new lockdown measures across the continent.

The partial recovery in US stocks came after Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, expressed optimism about reaching a deal with Republican lawmakers and the White House on a stimulus package. The negotiations are to renew expanded jobless benefits that expired at the end of July.

Tai Hui, chief Asia market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, said markets would be quick to react to any sign of progress in the talks over a stimulus deal. But “the potential optimism around a deal could be damped as we approach election day. The recent surge in infections in the US and Europe is also denting market sentiment”, he added.

Read more here

Coronavirus infections are climbing again in Europe and the US as the northern hemisphere goes into winter, pushing global cases to almost 43m, with more than 1.1m deaths.

You can see how your country compares to others in this Financial Times interactive produced by our visual and data journalism team.

And track global outbreaks with our tracker here.

Primrose Riordan in Hong Kong and Stephen Morris in London

HSBC will consider paying a 2020 dividend after the bank unveiled a better-than-expected third-quarter profit on lower provisions for bad loans.

The bank on Tuesday reported a 36 per cent year-on-year drop in pre-tax profits to $3.1bn for the third quarter, which was above analysts’ forecasts. Noel Quinn, HSBC’s chief executive, labelled the results “promising”.

Payment of a 2020 dividend will depend on the bank’s forecasts for 2021 and its consultations with regulators, HSBC said. The lender cancelled its payout this year following pressure from the Bank of England.

“We will seek to pay a conservative dividend if circumstances allow,” Mr Quinn said.

Provisions for bad loans dropped to $785m in the three months to September compared with $3.8bn in the previous quarter. That compared with the average analyst forecast for $2bn in provisions for the third quarter.

The lender said it expected total loan losses to be closer to the lower end of the $8-13bn range it had earlier forecast for the whole year.

“This latest guidance, which continues to be subject to a high degree of uncertainty due to Covid-19 and geopolitical tensions, assumes that the likelihood of further significant deterioration in the current economic outlook is low,” the bank said.

Read more here

Kana Inagaki in Tokyo

ANA Holdings has warned of its biggest ever annual loss of ¥510bn ($4.8bn) as the coronavirus crisis forces Japan’s largest carrier to cut its fleet 11 per cent and cancel its dividend payment.

The airline released its full-year guidance for the first time on Tuesday after it booked a net loss of ¥188bn for the April to September period due to a plunge in global travel demand. Revenue fell 72 per cent from a year earlier to ¥291bn.

As part of its $3.8bn cost-cutting programme over the next two years, ANA said it plans to cut its fleet of 309 aircraft by 33, including the retirement of 22 Boeing 777s.

The company said it has secured a credit line of ¥400bn to bolster its balance sheet amid the downturn.

Nicholas Megaw in London

Santander returned to profit in the third quarter and upgraded its full-year forecasts after more of its customers than expected recovered from the initial disruption of the coronavirus pandemic.

The group reported a net profit of €1.75bn for the three months to September, more than triple the same quarter last year, when results were hit by a large writedown on the value of its UK business.

Ana Botín, Santander executive chairman, said “the recovery of our business is progressing well, and the third quarter was significantly stronger than the second”, when the bank suffered the first loss in its 163-year history.

It set aside €2.5bn to deal with expected loan losses in the third quarter. The figure was 22 per cent higher than the same period last year after accounting for currency movements, but marked a sharp slowdown compared with the first half of 2020.

Santander said the customers who took out loan repayment holidays earlier in the year had restarted payments at a faster rate than expected. As a result, the bank lowered its full-year forecast for loan loss provisions as a proportion of its loan book to 1.3 per cent, from a previous estimate of 1.4 per cent to 1.5 per cent.

The Spanish bank said it was on track to reach a previously announced cost-cutting target for its European businesses ahead of schedule, and would now aim to cut a further €1bn in costs over the next two years.

The bulk of the bank’s profits continued to come from South America, particularly Brazil, but group performance was also helped by an easing of pressures on its long-suffering UK unit.

A price war in the mortgage market has squeezed profits at Santander UK for several years, but a surge in demand since the start of the summer has begun driving up prices and profit margins for lenders. Margins were also helped by cutting interest rates on its popular 123 current account.

Anjli Raval, Senior Energy Correspondent

BP returned to profit in the third quarter as crude prices and energy demand recovered, but the coronavirus pandemic hammered the oil company’s finances.

Underlying profit on a replacement cost basis — BP’s preferred measure of net income and the one tracked most closely by analysts — was down 96 per cent to $86m, from $2.3bn in the same period last year, the company said on Tuesday.

BP’s small profit, which came after the previous quarter’s giant loss, beat analysts’ forecasts for a loss of $120m.

The company said it benefited from the absence of major exploration write-offs unlike the prior three-month period even though earnings took a hit from “significantly lower” oil trading results.

The pandemic is accelerating an overhaul under its chief executive Bernard Looney, who started in his role in February and promised to transform BP into a net zero emissions company by 2050.

BP is restructuring its business but investors have yet to be convinced by the company’s plan, which it announced in August. Its share price has fallen to a multi-decade low. The company has said it will slash 10,000 jobs.

Read more here

Philip Georgiadis in London

EasyJet has raised £300m through selling and leasing back part of its fleet in a new effort to shore up its shattered finances.

The push for new cash comes after the low-cost carrier called for more government support for airlines as it faces the first annual loss in its 25-year history.

Chief executive Johan Lundgren urged the British government to prop up the ailing aviation sector earlier this month after the airline revealed it was on track for an £800m annual loss.

The sale and leaseback of nine of its workhorse A320 planes will raise just under £300m for the company, and came after the carrier said it had seen “high levels of demand” in the leasing market.

Like its rivals, easyJet has been forced to slash its winter flight schedules as a second wave of the virus extinguishes any hope of a recovery in air travel. Airline bosses are now pinning their hopes on borders opening up through an airport testing programme.

The low-cost carrier has raised about £2.7bn to help see it through the crisis, including tapping UK government Covid relief programmes for £600m, a £400m share placement and a previous programme of aircraft sale and leasebacks that generated £600m.

Harry Dempsey in London

Plus 500, the contracts for difference trading platform, almost doubled revenues and earnings in the third quarter, as financial markets stayed volatile.

Revenues soared 96 per cent year on year to $216.4m as active customers rose to almost 200,000 people in the three months ending in September. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose by a similar proportion to $134.2m.

However, the trading boom has eased from its peak in the second quarter when retail traders jumped onto online trading platforms in an attempt to profit from volatile global markets.

The gradual reduction in customer income has continued in the fourth quarter, the group said, although it did not mention the potential impact of the US election or resurgence in coronavirus on market volatility. The company said it was on track to hit analysts’ full-year forecasts for revenue and ebitda.

Patricia Nilsson in London

Bloomsbury Publishing has reported its strongest first-half profit in more than a decade as the pandemic fuelled sales of books over the internet as well as digital resources for academics.

The company behind the Harry Potter series said profit before tax in the six months ending August jumped 60 per cent to £4m, adjusted for costs related to recent acquisitions. Revenues grew 10 per cent to £78m and the London-based publisher said it would pay an interim dividend of 1.28 pence per share, in line with last year.

Nigel Newton, founder and chief executive of Bloomsbury, said the results were “our highest first-half earnings since 2008 and exceeded the board’s expectations”.

Online sales of physical books as well as ebooks was “significantly higher” and the company’s consumer division grew adjusted profit before tax by more than £2m to £2.7m.

Top-selling books in the period included Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race and Crescent City: House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas.

Mr Newton said the company’s non-consumer arm, which targets professionals and academics, had benefited from “the accelerated shift by academic institutions to digital products to support remote learning” with sales of its digital archives and other scholarly resources growing 47 per cent.

Bloomsbury said it had net cash of £44m as of August and that the publisher had continued to invest in new scripts building “a strong pipeline of authors and titles [leaving it] well positioned for the future”.

Alice Hancock in London

Whitbread, owner of Premier Inn hotels, is pushing ahead with plans to expand in Germany despite reporting one of its worst financial performances on record due to the coronavirus crisis.

The FTSE-listed hotel company said it had 21 hotels open in Germany and had invested about £40m in a further 15, which it planned to have open by December.

Thanks to a £1bn rights issue, which it undertook in June, and up to £600m raised through the UK government’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility, Whitbread said it was in a strong position to take advantage of distressed competitors and expand its market share.

However, the pandemic forced it to declare a £725m pre-tax loss in the six months to the end of August, down from a £220m profit during the same period of 2019. Revenues fell from just over £1bn last year to £251m.

The substantial loss was in part due to £339m of non-cash impairments triggered by a writedown of asset values as a result of the crisis, as well as the closure of the majority of its hotels between March and July.

Alison Brittain, Whitbread’s chief executive, said the company had trebled the number of hotels it ran in Germany since March and said that a “strong balance sheet continues to be a source of competitive advantage and positions the business for long-term growth”.

At the end of August, Whitbread said it had £936m in cash and a £950m undrawn credit facility as well as up to £600m of finance from the government scheme.

Premier Inn’s economic rates also meant that the business had outperformed peers, the company added, saying it had benefited from custom from “workers who need to be physically present to perform their jobs” as white-collar employees continued to work from home. Its total accommodation sales were 6 per cent ahead of the rest of the market in September.

However, regional restrictions enforced across large areas of the UK this month have slowed sales while “near-term visibility remains limited”.

Henry Sanderson in London

Petra Diamonds said the diamond market has shown “some modest improvement” following disruption due to Covid-19.

The London-listed diamond miner said prices for its precious stones rose 21 per cent at its September tender compared with June and July, and a further 2 per cent at its October sales event. Still prices are about 10 per cent lower than before the outbreak of coronavirus, it said.

“Conditions in the diamond industry are improving as lockdown measures around the world are eased and retail outlets reopened,” Petra said.

A reduction in supply from the largest diamond miners De Beers and Alrosa has created a “better equilibrium in the market and there is now improved demand from the downstream as retailers look to put orders in place in time for the festive retail season”, Petra said.

But Petra said much will depend on the level of consumer activity in the coming months, especially in the US, the world’s largest diamond market.

Madison Darbyshire in London

Investor reticence and social distancing measures are hurting wealth manager St James’s Place, which said that net inflows fell in the third quarter.

The wealth manager, known for its full-service offering and emphasis on in-person financial advice, has faced significant difficulties attracting new business during the pandemic. Gross inflows fell to £3.1bn in the third quarter, down from £3.7bn during the same period in 2019, and net inflows fell to £1.4bn, down from £2.1bn last year.

Both figures came in below analysts’ expectations.

The group came under fire from investors this week for its “bloated” organisational structure and high costs. Activist fund group PrimeStone criticised the company in an open letter to management, saying that it “has failed to deliver meaningful value for shareholders in the past five years”, despite client assets doubling during that time, and called for sweeping changes.

Funds under management have recovered to their pre-coronavirus pandemic highs, up almost 6 per cent to £118.7bn for the third quarter, against £112bn during the same period last year.

The group’s strength, analysts said, lies in its network of affiliated advisers, who deal directly with clients, provide advice and are responsible for customer retention as well as new business.

Andrew Croft, chief executive of SJP said: “Covid-19 will inevitably influence client confidence and subsequent decision making,” but added that “amid a challenging external environment our advisers…have continued to demonstrate exceptional flexibility during the period.”

Chris Turner, an analyst at Berenberg, called Tuesday’s results “mixed” and noted that “sticky” funds such as pensions had remained stronger for the group than net inflows into investment accounts, which were down more than 50 per cent from 2019.

Valentina Romei in London

Spain’s unemployment rate among young people rose above 40 per cent in the third quarter, as the pandemic choked the services-based economy resulting in the faster quarterly increase in joblessness since the debt crisis.

In the third quarter, 355,000 more people were unemployed in the eurozone’s fourth-biggest economy compared with the previous three months, the largest quarterly jump since 2012, official statistics showed.

The figure brings the unemployment rate to 16.26 per cent, from 15.33 per cent in the previous quarter and a faster increase than forecast by economists polled by Reuters. The figure does not include furloughed workers, which means that the true number of people without work is expected to be significantly higher.

Young Spaniards were the most affected as the jobless rate among the under 25s rose to 40.45 per cent in the third quarter, nearly 10 percentage points above the rate in the same quarter last year.

Spain’s economy is forecast to shrink more than any other large European country this year as restrictions struck a large tourism sector that is supported more by international visitors than its peers.

The country was the first in Europe to see the number of infections surge again at the end of the summer, prompting activity to weaken earlier.

Jyotsna Singh in New Delhi

India has recorded the lowest number of daily coronavirus cases since mid-July, marking a steady decline in infections from the September peak in one of the countries worst hit by the pandemic.

On Monday, about 36,500 new cases and 488 deaths were reported, as government data also highlighted the fastest rate of recovery for those with symptoms in 11 weeks.

However, public health experts remain concerned that the virus is likely spreading to densely populated areas within smaller towns and rural areas where testing and reporting facilities are poor. Those concerns have led them to warn that the drop in numbers may not reflect the true picture of the prevalence of the virus.

India has boosted its testing facilities in recent months but health services in the country of more than 1.3bn people remain overstretched, making testing and contact tracing particularly hard in rural and semi-urban areas. Many states have reduced the level of testing since September.

India hit a peak around mid-September when about 93,000 infections were being reported each day. Its total caseload has reached 7.9m, more than any other country in the world except the US.

Erika Solomon in Berlin

Germany’s coronavirus cases are rising exponentially and could hit a daily total of 20,000 by the end of the week, its minister of economy warned, a day ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s meeting with regional leaders to discuss tougher national restrictions.

“We are dealing with exponential growth,” said economy minister Peter Altmaier, speaking at a German-French economic conference.

Infection rates are rising 70 to 75 per cent each week, he said. “We will probably have 20,000 new infections a day by the end of this week.”

Rising infection rates, alongside new regulations, could make an economic rebound more difficult than previously expected, he warned.

Ms Merkel had promised to do everything possible to avoid another national lockdown but local media reported on Tuesday that she may now be seeking a “lockdown light”, which would force restaurants, bars, and large events to close but keep schools and daycare centres open.

Ms Merkel has repeatedly expressed concerns in recent weeks over the severity of the second wave of the virus, and has struggled to agree a national approach with regional leaders.

Germany has a decentralised federal system in which health policies are largely decided by states, a system that worked well in the first wave of the pandemic, when regional governments effectively co-ordinated to fight the outbreak. But it has come under strain amid the second wave, with regional leaders divided on how strict to make new measures.

Germany hit a new daily record on Saturday, with 14,714 recorded cases. Ms Merkel will meet with state premiers on Wednesday to discuss new regulations for tackling the rising case load.

Sarah Provan

HSBC and Santander shares powered on to become the best performing bank stocks in Europe and lift a lacklustre performance in the wider index as the lenders’ third-quarter earnings beat estimates.

HSBC’s shares rose more than 6 per cent after Europe’s largest lender said it could restart paying dividends and its provisions for bad loans fell, prompting executives to say the worst of the pandemic was behind them.

HSBC shares trimmed this year’s decline to 43 per cent as they added a fifth in the past month. The broader Stoxx 600 bank index rose 0.6 per cent in early Tuesday trading.

Santander’s shares showed resilience on Tuesday as they too outperformed the European bank index after the Spanish bank returned to profit. They rose 2.4 per cent in early trading, bringing their past month’s gains to nearly 14 per cent. The shares have dropped 53 per cent in 2020.

HSBC’s expected credit losses fell less than half the level analysts had expected at $785m in the three months to September as the global economy revived from strict lockdown measures put in place to contain the spread of the virus. The group had put aside $6.9bn in the first half.

The loan loss provisions contributed to a 54 per cent decline in HSBC’s quarterly net profit, which at $1.4bn was higher than the $882m forecast by analysts. It expects annual provisions for 2020 to be at the lower end of the $8bn-$13bn range it had previously guided.

Santander, the Spanish lender that gleans much of its profit from South America, upgraded its full-year forecasts after its customers recovered faster than expected from the initial disruption of the pandemic.

The group reported a net profit of €1.75bn for the three months to September, pulling back from its first loss in the bank’s 163-year history and more than triple the same quarter last year when it took a large writedown on its UK business.

Santander set aside €2.5bn against expected loan losses in the third quarter. That was 22 per cent more than for the same period last year, after accounting for currency moves.

Martin Arnold in Frankfurt

Banks are pulling back from lending to European businesses and households as they brace themselves for a rise in bad loans due to the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, a European Central Bank survey shows.

The move indicates that eurozone companies and consumers could find their access to bank credit is drying up just as they are hit by tightening government restrictions in response to the second wave of coronavirus infections.

The ECB’s quarterly survey of banks found “a tightening of credit standards on loans to firms in the third quarter of 2020 indicating credit risk considerations due to the coronavirus pandemic”.

Banks told the central bank that they expected “credit standards for enterprises to tighten further, reflecting concerns around the recovery as some sectors remain vulnerable as well as uncertainties around the prolongation of fiscal support measures”.

The findings paint a worrying picture for the ECB, which is due to meet virtually on Thursday to discuss monetary policy. Its policymakers are likely to be concerned that the outlook for jobs and growth could deteriorate if banks start reining in lending to households and businesses.

European governments have guaranteed hundreds of billions of euros in loans to struggling businesses, while central banks have flooded the banking system with ultra-cheap loans at negative rates to avoid companies being starved of credit.

However, demand for loans from eurozone businesses declined in the third quarter, “reflecting a decline in emergency liquidity needs relative to the previous quarter,” the ECB said. Demand for mortgages and consumer credit still grew in the quarter.

The ECB published separate data showing that overall money supply had increased by 10.4 per cent in September, the highest rate since the 2008 financial crisis. Loans to companies increased by 7.1 per cent, while loans to households grew by 3.1 per cent.

Martin Arnold in Frankfurt

Spanish banks reported the most drastic tightening of their lending standards and the biggest falls in demand for loans among the four biggest eurozone economies in the third quarter, followed by French and Italian banks.

The European Central Bank found regional banks were pulling back from lending as they predicted the coronavirus pandemic would trigger a rise in bad loans, its quarterly survey on banks published on Tuesday said.

Spain, one of the eight countries to have reported more than 1m Covid-19 cases since the pandemic struck in the spring, has been hit hardest in Europe by the second wave of the virus.

“Developments in Spain look worrying,” Frederik Ducrozet, strategist at Pictet Wealth Management, said on Tuesday, adding that it was difficult to estimate loan demand due to emergency measures.

Spain’s joblessness among young workers hit 40 per cent in the quarter to September, rising at the fastest quarterly pace since 2012, with 335,000 more people losing their jobs compared with the earlier three months as the coronavirus pandemic squeezed the services-based economy.

Spain, along with Italy, was hardest hit when the Covid-19 pandemic first struck the continent. The Spanish face a nationwide curfew between 11pm and 6am as the government introduced more sweeping measures to contain the spread of the virus.

Harry Dempsey in London

Shares in Campari advanced 2.3 per cent after earnings at the Italian spirits producer were boosted as Italian holidaymakers indulged in aperitifs over the summer. Sales increased 12.9 per cent in the third quarter, with strong sales from Italians travelling in their own country as Covid-19 restrictions and uncertainty put the brakes on overseas trips.

“Restrictive measures that are being reintroduced by the governments of many affected markets are expected to potentially generate an adverse effect on consumption in the on-premise channel,” the drinks maker said on Tuesday.

Chewing tobacco maker Swedish Match climbed to among the top Stoxx Europe 600 risers after sales and operating profit increased in the third quarter as Americans and Scandinavians rubbed more snuff on their gums through the pandemic. Sales of its smoke-free tobacco products, cigars and nicotine patches rose 15 per cent to SKr4.4bn ($500m) in the three months to the end of September, helping its operating profit soar more than a quarter to SKr2bn and add 5.2 per cent to its shares.

Shares in Covestro edged 0.9 per cent lower after the German chemicals manufacturer confirmed its full-year guidance assuming coronavirus curbs would not severely restrict economic activity again, as European governments gear up to escalate their pandemic response. Third-quarter net profit beat analysts’ expectations, helped along by cost-cutting initiatives and a significant improvement in demand for polymer materials from its automotive, construction and electronics customers.

Novartis upgraded its full-year outlook for operating profit, as the Swiss drugmaker predicted that healthcare systems would rough out a second wave of Covid-19 better than the first and dent sales of its treatments to a lesser extent. The virus hit sales of its dermatology products, eye disorder treatments and those by Sandoz subsidiary, but expectations of a more robust response to the pandemic prompted the group to upgrade its core operating profit growth forecast to low double digits to mid-teens, up from low double digits. Shares in Novartis fell 1.4 per cent in early Zurich trading.

Harry Dempsey in London

Covid-19 deaths in England and Wales rose by more than 50 per cent to 670 in the week ending October 16 in a sign of the growing severity of the resurgence in the virus, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.

The sixth consecutive week of increasing Covid-19 deaths in England and Wales pushed the illness’s share of total deaths up to 6.4 per cent, higher than 4.4 per cent a week earlier. The North West of England was hit worst, accounting for a third of deaths.

It was the worst week of virus deaths since June, with three-quarters of the deaths coming among people aged over 75.

There were 580 more total deaths recorded than in the previous week taking the weekly number to 10,534, which was 6.8 per cent above the five-year average.

Hannah Kuchler in New York

Eli Lilly lowered its guidance for 2020 and missed expectations in the third quarter, as the US drugmaker said its US drug prices were declining and it had increased spending on research and development related to Covid-19 treatments.

Shares in Eli Lilly fell 4.5 per cent to $135.28 in pre-market trading in New York after it said it expected reported earnings per share to be between $6.20 and $6.40 for the full year, down from between $6.48 and $6.68. Non-GAAP earnings per share and revenue forecasts remained the same.

David Ricks, the company’s chairman and chief executive, said he was incredibly proud of the commitment and progress Eli Lilly had made in the fight against Covid-19.

“In the third quarter, Lilly incurred expenses of $125m to develop and rapidly advance potential new therapies from our labs to clinical testing, with the hope of soon offering a new treatment option for patients most at risk from the virus,” he said.

The company said on Monday night that its antibody treatment did not work on hospitalised Covid-19 patients, but it was pursuing an emergency use authorisation for the drug for patients earlier in the course of the disease.

In the third quarter, Lilly missed expectations on earnings, reporting non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.54, an increase of 4 per cent from the same period the year before, but lower than the average analyst estimate of $1.71. Sales rose 5 per cent year on year to $5.7bn, below of the consensus forecast for $5.9bn. Net income fell 4 per cent to $1.2bn.

Matthew Rocco in New York

Advanced Micro Devices has agreed to buy rival chipmaker Xilinx in a $35bn all-stock deal, as the group looks to beef up its growing data centre business.

The deal, which is expected to close by the end of 2021, would create a combined company with 13,000 engineers and more than $2.7bn in annual research and development spending. AMD said the deal would generate $300m in cost savings within 18 months.

The combination — AMD’s largest acquisition to date — is expected to intensify its battle with Intel for a bigger slice of the lucrative market for making chips used in data centres. AMD also designs chipsets for computers and gaming consoles, both of which have attracted robust demand this year with the shift to remote working and at-home entertainment during the pandemic.

“Our acquisition of Xilinx marks the next leg in our journey to establish AMD as the industry’s high-performance computing leader and partner of choice for the largest and most important technology companies in the world,” said Lisa Su, AMD chief executive.

Xilinx shareholders will receive about 1.72 AMD shares per Xilinx share. That would value Xilinx at $143 per share, or 24.8 per cent higher than its closing price on Monday.

AMD shareholders will own 74 per cent of the combined company, and Xilinx shareholders will own the remaining 26 per cent.

Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran

Iran hit a record high in the number of coronavirus deaths and confirmed cases on Tuesday, despite many cities and towns following new restrictions since last week.

The health ministry announced that 346 patients had died while 6,968 people had tested positive over the past 24 hours. That puts the total number of deaths at 33,299, making Iran one of the worst-hit countries in the Middle East. The number of daily deaths has gone beyond 300 most days since last week.

Sima Lari, the health ministry’s spokesperson, regretted on Tuesday that Iran ranked 110th in the world in terms of its capacity to carry out Covid-19 tests. The Islamic Republic of Iran has complained that the US sanctions have affected its ability to respond appropriately to the disease.

In a post on Twitter, Iran’s foreign ministry said on Monday: “Corona’s proven deadly, vicious & brutal everywhere, but it’s worse in Iran as it has a cruel collaborator: US regime.” It added: “We’ll overcome but NEVER forget.”

The government of Hassan Rouhani decided this week that only half of civil servants had to show up in offices for now and the rest should work remotely.

Meanwhile, all non-essential businesses, from beauty salons to gyms and shopping centres, have been closed this week in 43 towns and cities. Iran has not enforced a lockdown and has limited its punitive measures to fines for businesses and drivers who fail to wear face masks.

Harry Dempsey in London

US industrial conglomerate 3M reported better than expected revenues and earnings in the third quarter off the back of strong demand for its personal protective equipment and medical components during the Covid-19 health crisis.

Sales at the manufacturing group rose 4.5 per cent to $8.4bn in the three months ending in September, with sales for its healthcare division jumping a quarter to $2.2bn. Its earnings per share at $2.43 was better than the $2.26 a share consensus forecast by analysts.

The group reported improving demand in many of the sectors benefiting from the trends toward hygiene and working from home, such as cleaning, personal safety, home improvement and data centres.

However, the Minnesota-based company did not reinstate full-year guidance on continuing uncertainty, as the pandemic continues to knock demand for its office, dental, consumer electronics and industrial products.

Shares in 3M were relatively unmoved during pre-market trading.

Sarah Provan

Merck, the US pharmaceuticals group, reported a 55 per cent rise in third-quarter net income, driven by double-digit sales growth in its cancer treatment drug.

Net income rose to $2.9bn from $1.9bn a year earlier, while quarterly sales added 1 per cent to $12.6bn. Quarterly sales in its cancer treatment Keytruda increased 21 per cent rise to $3.7bn while animal health revenue climbed 9 per cent rise to $1.2bn.

The US group narrowed and raised its full-year revenue range to be between $47.6bn and $48.6bn, which includes a hit from currency fluctuations of about 1.5 per cent.

However, Merck narrowed and lowered its 2020 earnings per share range to $5.91 and $6.01. It previously estimated a range of $5.63 to $5.78.

For the third quarter, the group posted earnings per share of $1.16, from 74 cents in the same period a year earlier. Merck earned $1.74 per share on an adjusted basis, more than analysts’ forecast of $1.44.

The group estimated the blow from the Covid-19 pandemic to be about $475m for the three months, bringing the 2020 hit on revenue to about $2.1bn.

“We remain confident we will achieve solid full-year revenue growth despite the impact of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic,” said Kenneth Frazier, chairman and chief executive officer. “Demand for our products remains robust, and production, supply and distribution of our medicines, vaccines and animal health products are moving forward with minimal disruption.”

Merck shares rose 1 per cent in pre-market trading.

Hannah Kuchler in New York

Pfizer’s business is recovering more slowly than expected from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, with lower demand for drugs in China and continued disruptions of regular wellness visits in the US.

The US drugmaker tightened its forecasts for the full year, expecting sales of between $48.8bn to $49.5bn, compared with previous projections of $48.6bn to $50.6bn. It now expects non-gaap earnings per share to be between $2.88 to $2.93, compared with its former forecasts of between $2.85 and $2.95.

Pfizer’s forecasts do not include any impact from a Covid-19 vaccine in 2020, which it may submit for an emergency use authorisation before the end of the year. The company has previously said it expects interim data from its phase three trial for the vaccine, which it is developing with German partner BioNTech, by the end of October. It has enrolled more than 42,000 participants so far.

Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s chief executive, said he was confident in the company’s future as “a smaller, more agile, science-based pharmaceutical company”, as Pfizer spins off its generics business UpJohn, expecting to close the transaction by the end of the year.

“I could not be more proud of the extraordinary effort, dedication and resolve shown by Pfizer colleagues to address the Covid-19 pandemic with unprecedented speed, while never compromising on their commitment to the patient-centered, science-driven standards that guide everything we do,” he said.

In the third quarter, Pfizer reported non-gaap earnings per share of 72 cents and revenue of $12.1bn, broadly in line with expectations. Sales for its core biopharma business increased 3 per cent year on year to $10.2bn but sales at UpJohn dropped 18 per cent to $1.9bn.

Shares were flat at $37.92 in pre-market trading in New York.

Matthew Rocco

Caterpillar’s earnings fell by half in the third quarter, as equipment sales remained under pressure amid economic fallout from the pandemic.

The maker of bulldozers and excavators reported a 23 per cent year-on-year decline in revenues to $9.9bn. Equipment sales in North America were down 31 per cent in the three months to the end of September.

Caterpillar booked an operating profit of $985m, down 51 per cent year on year. Earnings per share fell to $1.22 from $2.66, while analysts expected a larger drop to $1.16 per share.

Caterpillar said profits per share benefited from lower than expected taxes but included pre-tax losses of 12 cents related to the settlement of pension obligations.

The Illinois-based group, which manufactures a range of equipment for the construction, energy and transportation sectors, has faced weaker demand, with businesses putting off big purchases amid uncertainty brought on by coronavirus.

Jim Umpleby, chief executive, said Caterpillar was “encouraged by positive signs in certain industries and geographies”, adding that “we’re executing our strategy and are ready to respond quickly to changing market conditions”.

Sales in the company’s Asia-Pacific division held up better than other regions, with construction-related equipment revenues growing 14 per cent. The region’s sales were down 8 per cent overall.

Caterpillar shares fell 2 per cent in pre-market trading.

Philip Georgiadis in London

Nearly 200 European airports face financial collapse in the coming months as the crisis in aviation drags into the winter months, the industry trade body has warned.

ACI Europe said that 193 airports “face insolvency in the coming months” unless there is a recovery in passenger numbers by the end of the year.

Smaller regional airports, which tend to struggle even in good times, faced the brunt of the damage, ACI said on Tuesday.

Passenger numbers at Europe’s airports were nearly three-quarters lower in September than they were in the same month last year.

“Governments’ current imposition of quarantines rather than testing is bringing Europe’s airports closer to the brink with every day that passes,” said ACI Europe’s director general Olivier Jankovec.

Mamta Badkar in New York

A key gauge of US business investment accelerated faster than expected last month, but still cooled from August, as the domestic economy kept up its gradual recovery from the coronavirus crisis.

New orders for non-defence capital goods excluding aircraft, considered a proxy for business investment, rose a cooler 1 per cent from a revised August figure of 2.1 per cent, the commerce department said on Tuesday.

That was better than expectations for a 0.5 per cent increase and marked the fifth consecutive monthly advance.

“The rebound in activity in China and soaring domestic spending on goods is lifting core capex orders, though the momentum in the monthly numbers is slowing,” said Ian Shepherdson, economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

“With the services sector, which spends more on capex than manufacturers, still in disarray due to Covid, we expect further gains in core capex orders to be modest,” he added.

The report showed overall orders for durable goods, big ticket items designed to last at least three years, climbed 1.9 per cent last month. That followed a 0.4 per cent increase in August and beat economists’ expectations for a 0.5 per cent rise, according to a survey by Reuters.

Total orders were boosted as Boeing received fewer cancellations for previous orders than it did in August.

Matthew Rocco

US home prices rose at their fastest annual pace in two years, as gains picked up in August amid strong demand in the housing market.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index tracking home prices nationally jumped 5.7 per cent year on year, compared with a 4.8 per cent increase in the prior month.

“The last time that the National Composite matched August’s 5.7 per cent growth rate was 25 months ago, in July 2018,” said Craig Lazzara, managing director and global head of index investment strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “If future reports continue in this vein, we may soon be able to conclude that the Covid-related deceleration is behind us.”

Home prices in 10 large markets climbed 4.7 per cent, faster than a 3.5 per cent rise in July.

The 20-city composite index, which excluded Detroit due to a data collection issue, was up 5.2 per cent, better than the 4.2 per cent growth that analysts anticipated and a 4.1 per cent improvement a month earlier. All 19 cities recorded a stronger rate of price growth in August.

The housing market has helped lead the US economy’s rebound from the worst of the coronavirus-fuelled crisis in the spring.

New home sales slowed in September for the first time in five months, but sales of previously owned homes, which account for the majority of transactions, hit a fresh 14-year high last month.

However, economists have warned that rising costs could dent demand by pricing out budget-conscious shoppers, even as mortgage rates sit near record lows.

Jyotsna Singh in Delhi

Hundreds of frontline doctors and health workers fighting the battle against coronavirus in Delhi have launched an indefinite strike over months of unpaid salaries.

Services have been hit at many hospitals run by local authorities since Monday when senior doctors went on a mass leave protest to press for an urgent resolution to their demands.

The physicians have been staging sit-in demonstrations and hunger strikes for weeks to demand the authorities release their salaries that are overdue for three months. North Delhi Municipal Corporation officials have held talks with the doctors but the issue remains unresolved.

The Indian Medical Association, which represents doctors nationwide, has said the row over non-payment “sends a wrong message to the profession and the nation”.

“It demoralises the entire doctor community,” the IMA said on Monday.

Delhi has been one of the worst affected states from the coronavirus pandemic. The national capital is reporting a surge in caseloads, after recording a decline for two weeks. Health experts say more vigorous testing is needed to curb spread of the virus.

Sam Jones in Zurich

Switzerland has “no time to lose” and faces another nationwide lockdown since a harder-hitting second wave of infections puts the alpine country in danger of running out of intensive care beds.

“We have no time to lose. There are no alternatives to drastic measures,” the president of the advisory Covid-19 taskforce said on Tuesday, adding that the situation is more serious than in March during the peak of the first wave of the pandemic.

A second nationwide lockdown must be put on the table as a potential response, Martin Ackermann said.

Intensive care beds are at risk of being used up in 11 days’ time if the recent rise in coronavirus infections keeps up the pace, the government’s scientific advisory group said at a briefing on Tuesday.

The situation in the wealthy alpine state has deteriorated in recent weeks, the advisers said, and called on the Swiss to return to working from home and only travel if absolutely necessary.

Switzerland, a country of 8.5m, on Tuesday reported 5,949 positive Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours.

The governing federal council is due to unveil its decision on tighter restrictions on Wednesday.

Bern has been reluctant to impose harsher unilateral measures. After the first lockdown, politicians were keen to prioritise protecting the economy and remain divided as to how much more intervention is needed.

Since mid-June, it has been left up to cantonal governments to decide on appropriate public health responses.

James Fontanella-Khan in New York, Leila Abboud in Paris and Arash Massoudi in London

LVMH and Tiffany are in active talks to renegotiate their $16.6bn tie-up in an effort to avoid a court battle in January, four people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The French luxury goods group had agreed to pay $135 a share in cash for US jeweller Tiffany in November last year, but since the Covid-19 pandemic hit it has been pushing for a price cut. Last month it threatened to walk away from the deal, triggering competing lawsuits in the US commercial court in Delaware.

Tiffany recently signalled that it was willing to consider a new price as long as it was above $130 a share and the French company agreed to close the transaction without further changes, two people said.

LVMH was open to discussing such terms, and the two sides were still in negotiations, said two additional people.

Every $1 a share off the original $135 a share deal equates to a saving of about $120m on the purchase price.

Shares in Tiffany rose 1.5 per cent to $124.71 in early New York trading. CNBC earlier reported that the discussions were under way.

LVMH and Tiffany declined to comment.

Sarah Provan

Coronavirus-related deaths in England have jumped almost five-fold in a month as the spread of infections picked up pace, especially in the northern regions which have had to knuckle down under the country’s toughest restrictions.

NHS England recorded 207 hospital deaths among those patients who tested positive for coronavirus, with nearly 60 per cent being in the north, a statement on Tuesday said.

The figures bring the total number in England to 32,117. The date of death ranged from September 24 to October 26, with most being on or after October 20, the statement said.

The authority in England clocked 44 deaths on September 29, a comparable Tuesday of data.

Northern England, which faces some of the toughest restrictions as the UK government seeks to staunch the spread of infection, shows the steepest rise in coronavirus-related deaths. The north-west, north-east and Yorkshire registered 121 deaths on Tuesday. A month ago, the regions reported 33 Covid-19 deaths.

The UK government has imposed a three-tier system of rules, the toughest of which includes no mixing among different households, even in private gardens. Pubs and bars not serving food have closed while travel to and from the area has been discouraged.

Peter Wells in New York

Arizona’s new coronavirus case count ticked back above 1,000 on Tuesday, while deaths rose by the most in nearly a week.

A further 1,157 people tested positive over the past 24 hours, authorities revealed this morning, up from 801 on Monday and compared with 1,040 on Tuesday last week.

In mid-October, Arizona reported its first daily increase in new coronavirus cases in a month, and Tuesday marks the fourth such instance in the past fortnight. Infections in the Grand Canyon state have been rising steadily and the seven-day average has now been above 1,000 a day for three days in a row. Mid-August was the most recent time a streak like that had occurred.

The state health department attributed a further 16 deaths to coronavirus, up from a two-week low of one on Monday and compared with seven on Tuesday last week. It was the largest increase in fatalities since the 17 reported on October 21.

Arizona has averaged about eight deaths a day over the past week. For most of the past three weeks, the state has averaged daily deaths in the single-digits and some of the lowest levels since April.

Peter Wells in New York

Florida reported nearly 4,300 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, taking its seven-day average to the highest level in just over two months.

A further 4,298 people tested positive over the past 24 hours, up from 3,377 on Monday and compared with 3,662 on Tuesday last week.

The Sunshine State has now averaged just over 3,700 new cases a day over the past week, the highest seven-day average rate since August 24.

A further 73,775 coronavirus tests were conducted over the past day, up from about 61,500 reported on Monday and the biggest volume in three days. The percentage of people who tested positive for the first time rose to a six-day high of 6.31 per cent, up from 5.91 per cent on Monday.

Authorities attributed a further 56 deaths to coronavirus, up from 20 yesterday and compared with 86 on Tuesday last week.

That is also one shy of the state’s daily average of fatalities over the past week, which, in turn, is at its lowest since early July.

Peter Wells in New York

Pennsylvania, one of the battleground states in the upcoming presidential election, reported its biggest one-day increase in coronavirus cases on Tuesday.

A further 2,751 people tested positive, the state’s health department revealed this afternoon, up from a one-week low of 1,407 on Monday and compared with 1,557 on Tuesday last week.

That topped the state’s previous record day, of 2,219 new cases on October 23, which itself had surpassed the previous peak from back in April. Pennsylvania was among the north-eastern states to be hit during the first wave of the pandemic in the US during the spring, although its daily figures at the time paled in comparison to the likes of New York and New Jersey.

Authorities attributed a further 23 deaths to coronavirus, up from seven on Monday and compared with 33 on Tuesday last week.

Since the start of the pandemic, the health department has confirmed 198,446 Covid-19 cases and 8,696 deaths across the state. Adjusted for population, that places it in the bottom sixth of states in terms of total cases (about 1,529 per 100,000 people) but the top one-third in terms of fatalities (about 68 per 100,000 people), according to Financial Times analysis of data from the Covid Tracking Project and the US Census Bureau.

Pennsylvania has averaged 1,939 cases a day over the past week, a record rate. The increase in nationwide testing capacity since spring means current case rates may not be directly comparable to those earlier on in the crisis.

While the number of people currently in Pennsylvania hospitals with coronavirus has doubled this month to almost 1,200, this is 40 per cent of the state’s peak in April.

Pennsylvania has averaged about 23 deaths a day over the past week, a little more than double the five-month low of 11 it hit in mid-September. The latest rate is down slightly from 25 on Sunday, which marked the highest level since the end of June.

Peter Wells in New York

California reported new coronavirus cases and deaths on Tuesday that both came in below their respective averages over the past week.

A further 3,188 people tested positive over the past 24 hours, up from 2,981 people on Monday and compared with 3,286 on Tuesday last week.

Authorities attributed a further 43 deaths to coronavirus, from 12 on Monday and compared with 22 on Tuesday last week.

Over the past week, California has averaged about 4,300 new infections and 58 deaths a day, representing a nearly two-month high for the former, and a roughly six-month low for the latter.

A further 144,220 tests were reported to authorities over the past 24 hours, down by about 50,700 from Monday’s record volume.

The state’s 14-day positivity rate edged higher to 2.9 per cent from 2.8 per cent on Monday. The metric hit a historic low of 2.5 per cent in mid-October, but last weekend reached 3 per cent for the first time in a month.

Victor Mallet in Paris

France reported 523 more coronavirus deaths on Tuesday as infections and hospitalisations continued to surge across the country and President Emmanuel Macron prepared to address the nation on Wednesday night to announce more restrictions on people’s movements.

An additional 288 hospital deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours, as well as a further 235 from recent days in old people’s homes and other care homes — its biggest daily increase in fatalities since April 22. That brought the total death toll since the start of the pandemic to 35,541.

Mr Macron has said he wants to avoid another nationwide lockdown such as the one imposed in March, but the autumn’s “second wave” is putting so much pressure on hospitals and intensive care units that ministers have warned he will have to tighten existing restrictions further.

Two-thirds of the country is under curfew from 9pm-6am, and one option will be to lengthen the curfew hours and restrict movement at weekends.

Dave Lee in Park City, Utah

Amazon has said it will hire an additional 100,000 seasonal workers in the US and Canada to handle the holiday rush, as it rolls into a period of unprecedented demand, the latest move to rapidly expand its logistics empire.

Amazon’s Prime Day discount event this month heralded the earlier than usual holiday buying period, brought forward in an attempt — by the commerce group as well as other online retailers — to spread the burden of delivering Christmas over a longer period of time.

However, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday still to come, Amazon’s logistics expansion continues apace: the 100,000 seasonal workers are in addition to the 100,000 permanent employees the company said it was seeking to employ just last month, the fourth such recruitment drive of the year. The available positions will involve “stowing, picking, packing, shipping and delivering customer orders”, among other tasks, with the opportunity for promotion. Amazon said it had promoted 35,000 workers from entry jobs in the year so far.

Marc Wulfraat, a logistics analyst, said Amazon is adding an average of 2.3m square feet of logistics space every week, “which is astonishing, since some large retailers add this amount of space to their network once every decade”.

On Monday, the FT’s Joe Miller reported that delivery service DHL Express, used by Amazon, would employ an additional 10,000 employees. “From an ecommerce perspective some might even say that Covid-19 brought 2030 to 2020, with online shopping and the necessary shipping as the new normal,” said DHL’s Michiel Greeven.

Peter Wells in New York

Wisconsin reported a record jump in coronavirus cases and deaths on Tuesday, reflecting the political swing state’s weeks-long pandemic flare-up.

A further 5,262 confirmed cases were revealed by authorities this afternoon, up from 2,883 on Monday and soaring past the previous one-day record of 4,591 on Tuesday last week.

The state’s health department attributed a further 64 deaths to coronavirus, up from 11 yesterday and compared with 35 on Tuesday last week. This cruised past the previous record of 48 reported on October 21, according to state data.

A surge in cases since the start of September has turned Wisconsin, a key swing state in the upcoming presidential election, into one of the country’s coronavirus hotspots this autumn.

The Badger State has tallied 206,311 confirmed cases and 1,852 deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to its health department.

Other Midwest states, which have also experienced a surge in recent weeks, also reported elevated levels of infections on Tuesday.

Authorities in Illinois reported a further 4,000 cases, down from 4,729 on Monday and compared with 3,714 on Tuesday last week. That sits in the shadow of Saturday’s record of 6,161. A further 46 deaths in the state were attributed to coronavirus, up from 17 yesterday and compared with 40 on Tuesday last week.

Ohio, another political swing state, reported a further 2,509 coronavirus cases, up from 2,116 yesterday and a little way back from ’s record of 2,858. The death toll rose by 22, double Monday’s increase.

Colby Smith, Camilla Hodgson and Hudson Lockett

The S&P 500 fell for a second-straight day on Tuesday and shares in Europe closed sharply lower, as concerns grew that the worsening pandemic would stymie business activity.

Wall Street’s benchmark index dropped 0.3 per cent having risen earlier in the trading session and following a 1.9 per cent drop on Monday as coronavirus case numbers in the US surged higher. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, however, was up 0.6 per cent.

In Europe, the stock sell-off gathered pace in afternoon trading with bourses closing sharply lower. The region-wide Stoxx 600 index, which lost 1.8 per cent on Monday, fell by a further 1 per cent to its lowest point since the end of May. London’s FTSE 100 closed down 1.1 per cent, Frankfurt’s Dax lost 0.9 per cent and the CAC 40 in Paris slid 1.8 per cent.

The falls came as investors digested the implications of further lockdown measures announced by countries including Spain and Italy to stem a surge in infections.

“The reality is that we have Covid-19 spikes in the EU and US and a gap of a few months before vaccines kick in, with Germany mentioning a soft lockdown,” said Sebastien Galy, senior macro strategist at Nordea Asset Management. The economic recovery from the pandemic is “teetering on the edges of [being] a W-shaped reality”, he added.

Read more here

Richard Waters in San Francisco

Microsoft reported another strong quarter for its commercial cloud business on Tuesday, as the surge in demand for cloud services during the pandemic lifted its revenues and earnings ahead of expectations.

Revenue in the latest period jumped 12 per cent to $37.2bn, or 4 per cent above expectations, while earnings per share, at $1.82, increased 32 per cent, topping forecasts by 28 cents.

In a statement ahead of a call with analysts during which the company was expected to give financial guidance for its current quarter, Amy Hood, chief financial officer, said the company had a strong start to its fiscal year thanks to demand for cloud services.

She also said the company was investing “to drive long-term growth”, echoing recent comments from company executives that have raised the spectre of weaker profit margins in the short term.

Despite that, Microsoft’s operating margin came in slightly ahead of expectations as it held operating cost growth to only 3 per cent in the latest quarter.

Revenue from commercial cloud — the clearest indicator of the performance of Microsoft’s core cloud business — jumped 31 per cent in the quarter, to $15.2bn. Azure, its public cloud platform, registered another slowdown, with revenue climbing 47 per cent in constant currency terms compared with growth of 50 per cent the previous quarter, though this was still ahead of expectations.

The US software company also benefited from pockets of strength in gaming and consumer PCs, thanks to the continued effects of the pandemic, while businesses that were hurt earlier in the year, such as LinkedIn and the Dynamics applications business, rebounded.

Kerin Hope in Athens

Greece reported a record single-day number of coronavirus cases on Tuesday, led by a further increase of infections in northern regions of the country.

Health authorities said 1,269 people tested positive, compared with 715 on Monday and 667 last Tuesday.

The northern cities of Ioannina and Serres, where Covid-19 cases have risen steadily this month, will be placed under quarantine from Thursday, Nikos Hardalias, the deputy minister for civil protection, said. Two nearby regions, Kozani and Kastoria, are already in lockdown.

Thessaloniki, the largest city in the north, where a night-time curfew took effect at the weekend, reported a single-day record of 291 cases.

Niki Kerameus, the education and religious affairs minister, said in a tweet on Tuesday that she had tested positive for the virus but would remain in isolation. A ministry spokesperson said she had not shown any symptoms.

Ms Kerameus faced criticism from parents for insisting that schools should operate normally from September despite increasing numbers of Covid-19 cases, with pupils of all ages required to wear face-masks during lessons. However, relatively few infections have been reported in schools, according to EODY, the civil protection agency.

Twelve deaths from Covid-19 were recorded on Tuesday, bringing the tally of fatalities to 593 out of 32,752 confirmed cases since the outbreak began in February.

Peter Wells in New York

Texas reported more than 7,000 new coronavirus cases for the first time in more than two months on Tuesday.

A further 7,055 people tested positive over the past 24 hours, authorities revealed this afternoon, up from 4,418 on Monday and compared with 4,856 on Tuesday last week.

It was the biggest daily increase in new cases since the 7,282 reported on August 18.

Texas’s health department has, for months, been adding older cases from backlogs of tests at commercial laboratories to the statewide total, although these are excluded from the daily tally. A further 237 historical cases were revealed by authorities this afternoon, including 129 from the area around Houston and 53 from the region around El Paso.

The number of people currently in Texas hospitals with coronavirus rose to 5,512 from 5,278 on Monday. It was the highest number of patients since the 5,566 reported on August 21.

Authorities attributed a further 81 deaths to coronavirus, up from 10 on Monday and compared with 65 on Tuesday last week.