The CEOs of major U.S. airlines, including American Airlines, Delta, JetBlue and Southwest, are meeting with Vice President Mike Pence to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the industry. Yahoo Finance’s Akiko Fujita and Emily McCormick break down the details.

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America's up-again, down-again group of cruise line stocks — Carnival Corporation (CCL), Royal Caribbean (RCL), and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH) — went down again, en masse, this week, with all three companies' stocks sinking 10% or more.Don't say you were not warned.Analyst Chris Woronka of Deutsche Bank penned a note in which he tweaked price targets ever so slightly higher. At the same as he did this, however, Woronka also warned investors that none of the three publicly-traded cruise stocks is currently cheap enough to buy.Although Woronka raised his estimates (the price target on Carnival going from $11 to $13 a share, Royal Caribbean going from $36 to $40, and Norwegian Cruise from $11 to $15), the analyst remained firmly on the fence about all three of these companies, and reiterated a "hold" rating on all three stocks. Turns out, while in the long term Woronka sees the three major cruise stocks recovering after getting torpedoed by the COVID-19 panic, it could be several years still before things start to look better for them.So, how precisely does Woronka seeing this situation playing out?First, the background. COVID-19 has done a number on the cruise stocks, first by frightening potential customers away, and later by making it utterly impossible for passengers to cruise, even were they so inclined, because of a "no-sail" order implemented by the Centers for Disease Control to prevent further spreading of the coronavirus. For the past several months therefore, cruise companies have had no revenue at all coming in. A recent announcement by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), declaring that no cruise line will resume sailing before September 15 at the earliest, means there probably won't be any revenues coming in for another three — or more — months.To survive this situation, cruise lines have been cutting costs wherever they can. Woronka believes that, because cruise lines need to continue cutting costs, and are also forecasting a decline in demand for their services, it's likely that the cost cutting will result in cruise lines both postponing deliveries of cruise ships they've already ordered, and also selling off some of the ships they already have.Woronka believes that these ship sales will both generate cash (e.g. $3 billion in Carnival's case) that cruise companies can use to live on while confined to port, and also result in smaller, more efficient fleets by the time things start to recover two or three years from now. By the time 2023 rolls around, the analyst forecasts that Carnival, for example, will be operating a fleet 20% smaller than its current fleet. Royal Caribbean's fleet will be 8% smaller, and Norwegian's, 7% smaller.Smaller fleets are easier to fill up quickly with passengers, such that by 2023, Woronka believes that Carnival, for example, will have "net yields" (ships sailing with all cabins full) 3% higher than it enjoyed in 2019. And because fleets will be eliminating their older, less profitable ships, he also predicts EBITDA profit margins will improve at all three cruise lines.That's the good news. Now here's the bad: In addition to selling old ships, cruise lines have also been taking on boatloads of new debt in order to raise the cash they need to remain solvent while confined to port. In total, Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian Cruise are estimated to have taken on about $16 billion in new debt since the pandemic broke, while raising only about $1 billion in cash through share sales.Even at low interest rates, Woronka estimates that all this debt will add about $1.3 billion in annual interest expense at the cruise lines, thus siphoning off money that would otherwise drop to the bottom line, and depressing 2023 earnings per share by anywhere from 23% to 30% at all three cruise lines.So long story, short? Yes, cruise lines will recover, and several years from now, when coronavirus is only a distant memory, cruise ships will probably be back to sailing at full capacity. Because of the measures the cruise lines had to undertake to survive to see that day, however, each and every one of these cruise stocks is going to be significantly less profitable — which is why Deutsche Bank can't recommend buying any of Carnival, Royal Caribbean, or Norwegian Cruise Line stocks today.Using TipRanks’ Stock Comparison tool, we lined up the three alongside each other to get an idea of what the analyst community has to say about the long-term growth prospects of these cruise line players.To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.

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Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran joins Yahoo Finance’s On The Move to weigh in on the company going public and discuss the latest food trends amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

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(Bloomberg) — Boeing Co. and federal regulators are preparing to hold a critical set of test flights on the 737 Max early next week, which would mark a milestone in its return to service after being grounded for more than 15 months.Aviation industry officials briefed on the plans, which still haven’t been finalized, indicate that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has reviewed Boeing’s extensive safety analysis of fixes it has made and is comfortable moving to the next step: putting the plane through its paces with test pilots.Boeing had privately targeted hosting the FAA flights by the end of June. The first of several days of test flights could come as early as Monday, according to three people familiar with the plans who weren’t permitted to discuss the still-tentative plans publicly.An FAA “team is making progress toward FAA certification flights in the near future,” the agency said in a statement.“The FAA is reviewing Boeing’s documentation to determine whether the company has met the criteria to move to the next stage of evaluation,” the agency said. “We will conduct the certification flights only after we are satisfied with that data.”Boeing shares pared their losses on the Bloomberg report, declining 2% to $171.36 at 1:38 p.m. in New York. The shares had tumbled as much as 4.2% in the trading session after Bernstein analyst Douglas Harned downgraded the company to “sell.” He cited uncertainty over the 737’s comeback and the prospect of a pandemic disrupting air travel through mid-decade.Boeing declined to comment.Setting a date for certification flights is one of the most critical steps on Boeing’s road to resuming service on its best-selling jet since it was grounded in March 2019 amid a world-wide furor following the second fatal crash in less than five months. Several more hurdles remain before the plane can get its final certification from regulators, and airline customers have been told that it could come as soon as September if all goes well.The test flights come after more than a year of harsh criticism from Boeing’s skeptics, multiple investigations of the plane and a federal criminal probe.Successfully completing the test would provide some rare good news for Boeing and CEO Dave Calhoun at a time when the aviation industry is reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic and could help unlock billions of dollars in inventory from about 450 planes the company has built but been unable to deliver.“For Boeing, it could close a chapter that’s gone on longer than they wanted and kills a lot of speculation in the marketplace that the plane will never fly again,” said George Ferguson, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. Some short sellers have fanned speculation that the jet will never return.Conducting test flights is one of the final steps in the process of certifying a jetliner and aviation regulators wouldn’t have scheduled it if their review of Boeing’s proposed fixes had revealed significant additional issues.(Updates with share prices, FAA statement, Boeing no comment from third paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Trump's executive order prevents hundreds of thousands of foreigners looking to work in the United States through the end of 2020.

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After heeding the lessons from 2008-2009, leaders of the financial sector were equipped to step in as needed during the current crisis. As economies continue to lift restrictions and recover from one of the steepest declines on record, it’s time to analyze the lessons to be learned and identify needed change. The next crisis–be it climate change, the inequality gap, or retirement systems–is undoubtedly in the making. As we prepare to meet it, we must address crucial questions: Will we be able to transform a system that many believe does not work for them anymore and build a more equitable society? And what role do money managers have beyond their investment mandate and allocating capital to companies that have a social contribution to global challenges?

Moderator:
Andy Serwer // Editor-in-Chief, Yahoo Finance

Speakers:
Tom Finke // Chairman and CEO, Barings
Penny Pennington // Managing Partner, Edward Jones
Emmanuel Roman // Managing Director and CEO, PIMCO

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A key step in the return to service of the grounded Boeing 737 MAX could take place as soon as early next week, two people briefed on the matter said on Friday. Boeing Co’s best-selling plane has been grounded since March 2019 after two fatal crashes killed 346 people. A certification flight test, which is expected to last at least two days, is likely to take place starting as early as Tuesday but has not been finalized.

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Stocks fell Friday, with losses accelerating after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the state would be reversing its reopening process by closing bars and limiting restaurant capacity following a surge in coronavirus cases.

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