Oil Demand Recovery Threatened as Virus Cases Surge: Live Market Updates

The Federal Reserve continued snapping up corporate bonds to help keep credit markets functioning, with the central bank disclosing on Friday that it had added more than $1.3 billion in bonds from individual companies as of June 30.

The central bank has been helping to support the secondary corporate bond market — the one for already-issued debt — by buying Exchange Traded Funds, which track a broad basket of bonds but trade like stocks, as well as individual bonds. It announced last month that it was beginning to shift its purchases to an index of corporate debt of its own design.

That index is meant to reflect the available universe of bonds that fit the program’s restrictions, with limits for individual issuers. According to its most recent disclosure, the Fed invested in bonds from companies including Apple, AT&T, Bayer, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Ford Motor Co. and Verizon.

The Fed’s program is authorized to buy as much as $250 billion in already-issued bonds. Another program has been created to buy up to $500 billion of newly-issued bonds but the facility had not recorded any purchases at the end of June.

As of June 30, the Fed said it had $9.4 billion in total outstanding loans under its secondary market corporate credit facility. — Deborah Solomon

REI, the outdoor equipment chain, confirmed on Friday that it would lay off 400 retail employees by Wednesday as the industry continues to struggle through the pandemic. The company’s cuts follow the elimination of 25 percent, or 300 employees, at its headquarters in Kent, Wash., in April.

Eric Artz, REI’s chief executive, said in an email to staff on Wednesday that the retailer, which furloughed most of its store and field employees in early April, was able to bring back “nearly all employees who have the skills needed and who were available for the hours and shifts required for current customer demand.”

Mr. Artz said that some employees did not wish to return and “less than 5 percent” of retail staff were let go, according to the email, which was shared with The New York Times by REI Employees for Real Change, an advocacy group that has been pushing for labor rights for REI’s hourly workers. Earlier this year, the company, which is structured as a consumer cooperative with 19 million members, also cut pay for many employees at its headquarters.

REI, which has reopened nearly all of its roughly 160 stores, now has about 13,000 employees, according to a company representative. That’s a drop from the nearly 14,000 it cited in a February statement.

“As the months roll by, it’s clear that the virus is going to be with us in a profound way, for the foreseeable future,” Mr. Artz said in the email to employees….