North America

In a brutally frank and painfully honest first quarter operational update, Halliburton president Jeff Miller poured freezing cold water all over the "oil is stabilizing, and everything is going to be awesome" narrative. After explaining that the firm has laid off one-third of its global employees, and pointing to the collapse in sequential revenues across every business unit, Miller exclaimed: "What we are experiencing today is far beyond headwinds; it isunsustainable."

Shares of Lithium companies have surged after Tesla boosted its outlook for electric vehicles powered by batteries that use the element, sending the Solactive Global Lithium Index up by about a third since the middle of February.

For the latest indication of how bad the recession in the US sector field is, we took a look at last night's Schlumberger results which were modestly better than expected, beating expectations of $0.37 by one cent, however as usual the non-GAAP adjusted bottom line did not tell the full story. The Company's net income plunged nearly 50%, to $501 million, or 40 cents a share, from $975 million, or 76 cents, a year earlier. 

Just as US equity futures were about to roll over following some very substantial misses yesterday by the likes of Google, Microsoft, Starbucks and a plunge in Visa shares, overnight who came to the markets' rescue but the BOJ, when shortly after midnight Bloomberg reported that "according to people familiar with talks at the BOJ" which is the traditional keyword for a BOJ source testing out the market's reaction, Japan's central bank may "help" local banks to lend by offering a negative rate on some loans.

Monkeys accomplished a monumental task of migration eons before the two American continents joined together 3.5 million years ago. Scientists believe that monkey mariners resembling today’s capuchins crossed a hundred miles of open ocean some 21 million years ago to get from South America to North America.  Japan Times reports: Scientists said on Wednesday they reached that conclusion based on the discovery of seven little teeth during excavations involving the Panama Canal’s expansion, showing monkeys had reached the North American continent far earlier than previously known.