Boeing posted a first-Quarter loss of $641 million Wednesday and said it burned through $4.3 billion in cash during the first quarter as the company faces the Coronavirus crisis and the 13-month-long grounding of its best-selling plane, the 737 Max.

The company said it is planning to reduce aircraft production, including the 787 Dreamliner, and to cut payroll by about 10% through voluntary measures and “involuntary layoffs as necessary.”

Boeing had about 160,000 employees at the end of last year. —Leslie Josephs

Stocks jumped Wednesday on the back of positive data from a potential coronavirus treatment from Gilead Sciences while investors digested a sharp drop in U.S. economic activity. 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded more than 400 points higher at the open, or over 1.5%. The S&P 500 gained 1.9% while the Nasdaq Composite traded 2.1% higher. —Fred Imbert, Yun Li

Oil prices jumped more than 25% on Wednesday following a report that showed a smaller-than-expected build in U.S. inventory, and on the hope that economies will re-open sooner-than-expected.

West Texas Intermediate for June delivery surged 26.4%, or $3.26, to trade at $15.60 per barrel, while international benchmark Brent crude traded 11.6% higher at $22.84.

The surge higher came after data from the American Petroleum Institute showed that U.S. crude inventories jumped by 10 million barrels in the week to April 24, to 510 million barrels. That was lower than analysts’ expectations of a build of 10.6 million barrels, according to estimates from Reuters. —Eustance Huang, Pippa Stevens 

Gross domestic product fell 4.8% in the first quarter, according to government numbers released Wednesday that provide the first detailed glimpse into the deep damage the coronavirus wreaked on the U.S. economy.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had expected the first estimate of GDP to show a 3.5% contraction.

This marked the first negative GDP reading since the 1.1% decline in the first quarter of 2014 and the lowest level since the 8.4% plunge in Q4 of 2008 during the worst of the financial crisis.

The biggest drags on the economy were consumer spending, nonresidential fixed investment, exports and inventories. Residential fixed investment along with spending from both the federal and state governments helped offset some of the damage. —Jeff Cox 

Gilead Sciences said Wednesday it is aware of “positive data” from one of its studies looking at antiviral drug remdesivir as a potential treatment for the coronavirus.

The drugmaker was expected this week to release clinical trial results involving patients with severe cases of Covid-19. The severe study is “single-arm,” meaning it will not evaluate the drug against a control group of patients who didn’t receive the drug.

There are no proven treatments for Covid-19, which has infected more than 3 million people worldwide and killed at least 217,569 as of Wednesday morning, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. U.S. health officials say producing a vaccine to prevent the disease will take at least 12 to 18 months, making finding an effective drug treatment soon even more crucial. —Berkeley Lovelace Jr. 

Evidence is mounting that homebuyers may be coming back to the market after demand plummeted in the past month due to the coronavirus.

Mortgage applications to buy a home rose last week, but refinance demand fell, causing total application volume to decline by 3.3% for the week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. 

Mortgage demand from homebuyers jumped 12%, signaling a potential turn in buyer confidence. Volume was still 20% lower than the same week one year ago. Real estate firms and listing websites have been reporting more buyer demand anecdotally over the past two weeks, and some homebuilders say they are also seeing buyers come back. —Diana Olick

Boeing reported a first-quarter loss of $641 million, as the company faces both coronavirus and the more than yearlong grounding of its best-selling plane, the 737 Max.

The company is planning to reduce production of some aircraft, including the 787 Dreamliner.

Boeing is facing a dismal market for new planes as air travel demand plunges as the pandemic and measures to stop it from spreading keep travelers home. —Leslie Josephs

General Electric reported steep declines in first-quarter revenue and earnings as the industrial giant took a hit amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

The company posted a total revenue of $20.524 billion, which represents a year-over-year decline of 8%. GE Industrial profits fell 46% year over year to $1.096 billion from $2.017 billion. On an adjusted per-share basis, the company earned 5 cents. That’s below a Refinitiv estimate of 8 cents per share. 

“The impact from COVID-19 materially challenged our first-quarter results, especially in Aviation, where we saw a dramatic decline in commercial aerospace as the virus spread globally in March,” CEO Larry Culp said in a statement.

Culp said the company is eyeing cost cuts of more than $2 billion along with $3 billion in cash preservation to cushion the coronavirus blow. GE’s earnings release also indicated the industrial giant expects this quarter to be worse than the first. 

“The second quarter will be the first full quarter with pressure from COVID-19, and GE expects that its financial results will decline sequentially,” GE said. —Fred Imbert

Almost all areas of Spain have a coronavirus reproduction rate, known as the “R” number, below one, health emergencies chief Fernando Simon said Wednesday, Reuters reported. The reproduction rate refers to the number of people that an infected individual goes on to infect.

“Right now, almost all areas in the country have a reproduction number below one,” Simon told reporters in an online briefing.

If the reproduction number is not below one on average, he said, Spain cannot consider easing mobility restrictions. —Holly Ellyatt

Russia’s crisis response center reported 99,939 cases as of Wednesday, up an additional 5,841 cases in the last 24 hours.

The total number of reported fatalities remains relatively low, however, at 972 deaths. Russia says it has carried out 3.3 million tests. On Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin extended the national “nonworking” month through to May 11. He also warned that Russia had not yet seen the peak of the virus. —Holly Ellyatt

Spain’s daily death toll rose again again with the health ministry reporting 325 deaths Wednesday, up from 301 reported the day before.

The overall death toll from the virus rose by 453 to 24,275, however, as additional data was added from previous days, Reuters reported.

The country now has confirmed 212, 917 cases of the virus, the ministry said, up 2,144 from the previous day. —Holly Ellyatt