Stocks rally as reopening, easing China-US tensions beat bad data

HONG KONG (AFP): Moves to ease lockdown measures and reopen economies around the world fired equity markets Friday (May 8) as investors looked past a string of depressing data suggesting the planet is heading for its worst downturn since the Great Depression.

Some of the world's biggest economies are in contraction, factory production has collapsed, hundreds of millions of jobs have been destroyed and numerous companies have gone to the wall since the pandemic struck earlier in the year.