Happy Friday! As we wrap up the week we take a look at some positive news on the COVID-19 front. New cases in most European countries, in addition to China and South Korea, are trending down with one notable exception…will Europe’s poster child for “Do Nothing” regret that decision?

Stocks fell into the close today on bleak statements from Fed Chair Jerome Powell this morning in an online speech. He described the future as “highly uncertain and subject to significant downside risks,” urging the White House and Congress to provide more stimulus.

The U.S. unemployment rate clocked in at a disastrous 14.7% on Friday, hitting its highest point since the Depression. If that wasn’t bad enough, the report shows that the U.S. lost more than twice as many jobs as we did during the Great Recession… in approximately 1/12 of the time.

It’s jobs report day and we hate to break it to you, but the situation is… grim. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly Employment Situation Summary this morning and highlights include 20.5 million jobs lost in April, the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression (14.7%), and a “real” unemployment rate (which includes the underemployed and workers not actively seeking jobs) of 22.8%.

Halfway into an earnings season for the history books and analysts—much like the rest of the world—are still struggling to reach a consensus on what the future holds. The dispersion of estimates for S&P 500® Index companies has spiked to levels not seen since the financial crisis as our “new normal” has meant massive losses for some and gains for others.

If this month’s rent or mortgage payment hurt a little more than usual, you aren’t alone. Small businesses are struggling to keep up with expenses following the first full month since “social distancing” entered the lexicon. Only 5% of businesses surveyed made their rent payments in full and the projections of the economic impact of such a change are already in the billions of dollars.

U.S. GDP fell at a 4.8% annual rate in Q1, posting its first quarterly drop in over half a decade and it’s worst quarterly drop since the financial crisis. Consumer spending, the main (re: ~70%) contributor to GDP, was the primary culprit after suffering its worst nosedive since 1980, and plunging business investment was the runner up.

It’s a big day for the markets with Q1 GDP data, an FOMC meeting, and earnings reports from industry leaders Microsoft and Facebook. Amid a 4.8% contraction in GDP—the sharpest since the financial crisis—the S&P 500® Index forward P/E ratio shows that stocks remain expensive.

Ready for a pulse check on one of the most unique earnings seasons on record? In the S&P 500® Index, the Utilities, Healthcare and Information Technology sectors are leading the pack in terms of out-performance, while Energy’s bringing up the rear with only 20% of companies coming in above expectations.

~4.3 million more Americans filed for unemployment this week, and while that brings the quarantine-era total to ~26 million, inching us closer to a 20% unemployment rate, new claims are trending downward. Unfortunately, so are our manufacturing numbers which have slipped well into contraction territory and are on a path to revisit their financial-crisis lows.