Cruise ship operator Carnival says it is planning for a phased return to operations after being forced to stop running cruises in mid-March.

However, it is still expecting to report a net loss for the second half of 2020, and will burn around $650m per month over the final six months of the year.

Carnival said in a business update on Friday:

The company expects to resume guest operations, with ongoing collaboration from both government and health authorities, in a phased manner.

The pause in guest operations is continuing to have material negative impacts on all aspects of the company’s business.

The longer the full or partial pause in guest operations continues, the greater the impact on the company’s liquidity and financial position.

It says it sold one ship in June and has secured agreements and preliminary agreements to sell eight more over the next three months.

In total, it expects to get rid of 13 ships, which is a 9% drop in its current capacity.

Wall Street is open for trading and it looks like investors are moving cautiously following Thursday’s record one-day surge in Covid-19 cases in the US:

• S&P 500 opens 0.07% higher
• Dow opens 0.09% higher
• Nasdaq opens flat

DATA FLASH: US producer prices unexpectedly dropped 0.2% in June compared to a month earlier, after rising 0.4% in May.

Economists had been expecting a monthly rise of 0.4%, according to a Reuters poll.

On an annual basis, the producer price index fell 0.8% in June, having also fallen 0.8% in May.

Reuters forecasts were pointing to a 0.2% fall.

Turns out only 21 % of people in UK are comfortable with eating indoors at a restaurant now that restrictions are being lifted.

According to a survey by the Office for National Statistics, 60% of people are either uncomfortable or very uncomfortable with the idea.

That number jumps to 70% when people were asked about going to the cinema. Only 13% were comfortable/very comfortable with doing so.

People 70 or over were the most cautious about going to restaurants, with 66% uncomfortable about eating indoors at restaurants.

The survey also showed that Britons are not keen on going abroad despite looser travel restrictions and are opting for staycations instead.

According to an ONS survey, just 9% said they were likely or very likely to go on holiday overseas over the summer.

Meanwhile, 25% of adults said they were likely or very likely to go on holiday in the UK.

The hospitality chain the Restaurant Group (TRG) has said that one in 10 of its restaurants and pubs will not reopen this year, with the sector struggling to recover after the coronavirus lockdown.

The owner of chains including Wagamama, Frankie & Benny’s, and Garfunkel’s has reduced its overall business to about 400 locations, down from more than 600 at the start of 2020.

The group said it had secured additional funds and would prolong executive pay cuts to weather the crisis.

TRG said it had taken £50m from the government’s coronavirus large business interruption loan scheme, allowing it to extend its credit facilities.

Directors will take a 33% pay rise this month from their reduced lockdown levels, but still receive 20% below their normal basic salary while some of TRG’s 15,000 staff remain furloughed.

It said one in four restaurants would reopen by the end of the month, after the UK government revised its lockdown rules to open up dining from last weekend.

About 60% would be open by the end of August, with most of the remainder reopened by the end of September, TRG said.

However, it said the last 10% were not expected to reopen in 2020 at all because of “considerably weak” footfall – particularly in its airport locations.

As some Britons prepare to travel again, Admiral is reinstating the sale of travel insurance to new customers.

Admiral started selling cover to new customers from 7 July, according to Reuters, and is one of the first in the UK to do so. Its policies will cover medical expenses and repatriation related to Covid-19 but not for cancellations due to the virus.

It comes months after insurers hit the breaks on new policies as the pandemic gained pace across Europe.

Rivals including Aviva, Direct Line and LV= are yet to follow in Admiral’s footsteps, Reuters reports.

Direct Line said:

Direct Line will resume the sale of new travel insurance policies once we are confident that we can provide cover that meets the needs of our customers.

Saga and Staysure both continued offering new travel insurance policies through the pandemic but are not covering cancellations due to Covid-19 either.

As a reminder of the scale of payouts due to the pandemic, the Association of British Insurer estimates that travel insurance industry will pay out a record £275m in claims this year.

Time to check in on markets.

Major indices across Europe that started in the red are now trading in positive territory:

• FTSE 100 is up 0.2%
• FTSE 250 is up 1.1%
• Germany’s Xetra Dax is up 0.27%
• France’s CAC 40 is up 0.2%
• Italy’s FTSE MIB is up 0.4%

Don’t expect the cruise ship industry to bounce back anytime soon - at least not due to demand from the UK.

The UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) issued a statement on Thursday advising people not to embark on sailings due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This comes after the blanket advice against all nonessential foreign travel from England was lifted for dozens of destinations on Saturday.

The FCO pledged to “continue to review” its position on cruises, which is “based on medical advice” from Public Health England.

It insisted that it “continues to support the Department for Transport’s work with industry for the resumption of international cruise travel”.

The travel advice means many holidaymakers with future bookings risk having their trips cancelled.

The full PA Media report is here:

While the reopening of leisure businesses this month only affects England, there are also easing measures taking place in Scotland and Wales.

In Scotland:

10 July: Scots will be able to meet each other indoors and stay overnight from Friday for the first time in more than three months.

Non-cohabiting couples would be allowed to meet outdoors, indoors and overnight without physical distancing, while children under 12 would no longer have to physically distance outdoors or indoors.

15 July: Places of worship can reopen for congregational services and communal prayer.

In Wales:

On Friday, the Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, will announce measures to further lift Wales’ coronavirus restrictions. Here’s what he’s expected to outline:

13 July: Pubs, cafes and restaurants will open outdoors and hairdressers, barbers and mobile hairdressers will reopen by appointment

20 July: Playgrounds and community centres will open ahead of the summer holidays.

27 July: Drakeford will also signal that the wider beauty industry in Wales, including tattooists, can begin to prepare to reopen from 27 July, if conditions allow.

You can read our full story here:

The Gym Group, one of Britain’s largest operators of low-cost gyms, has set out plans to reopen almost all of its establishments in England from 25 July, with Covid-19 measures including apps for customers to check if gyms are busy.

Initially, 160 of its 179 branches will open on the first date permitted under government guidelines issued on Thursday, with the remainder – in Leicester, Scotland and Wales – to follow when restrictions are relaxed.

There will be a trial of 24-hour opening in a small number of establishments at first while new operating procedures are tried out, including spacing out equipment, limiting users at any one time, temperature checks on staff, improved ventilation and sanitation, and cleaning kit after each use.

The group will also encourage people to use gyms and leisure facilities at quieter periods by providing members with a live “gym busyness” online tracker and recent usage patterns.

The Gym Group has lost more than 20% of its membership during the four months of lockdown, despite freezing all payments, and has just under 700,000 remaining customers, with an average age of 32. It said it would give options for all members to continue to freeze payments if necessary.

Richard Darwin, the chief executive of the Gym Group, said:

We are in the process of unfurloughing our colleagues, who will be ready to open the doors of our gyms in England on 25 July and in the other home nations once restrictions are lifted. We are encouraged by the response of our members, the vast majority of whom are keen to get back to the gym to begin working out again.

The upward revision to IEA oil demand forecasts have not really moved the dial on oil prices, with Brent crude still trading lower by nearly 1.2% on Friday morning.

WTI is down nearly 1.5%.

NEWS FLASH: The International Energy Agency has raised its forecasts for oil demand in 2020 to 92.1 million barrels per day, which is a 400,000 bdp increase from its outlook last month.

The IEA said “this is mainly because the decline in 2Q20 was less severe than expected.”

However, the 2020 outlook is still down by 7.9 million barrels per day versus 2019.

The agency warned that the Covid-19 pandemic still posed a downside risk to the outlook.

While the oil market has undoubtedly made progress since “Black April”, the large, and in some countries, accelerating number of Covid-19 cases is a disturbing reminder that the pandemic is not under control and the risk to our market outlook is almost certainly to the downside.

While England’s gym owners, tattoo artists and beauticians are scrambling to get ready to open their doors, it’s worth keeping their expectations low as consumers seem hesitant to return to old habits during the pandemic.

The BRC numbers serve as a warning on this front, as do figures around the pub and goers following their reopening on “Super Saturday” last weekend.

Pub and restaurant chains traded at half their pre-pandemic levels after reopening across England last weekend, as consumers proved to be wary of visiting their local or eating out, Rob Davies reports.

Among those pubs that did open, sales on 4 July and 5 July were 45% below pre-Covid levels, the analysis found.

According to the Coffer Peach Business Tracker, which collates sales figures from 32 pub chains, about four out of 10 chain pubs began serving drinks again last weekend after being closed for nearly four months.

Restaurants were far less likely than pubs to resume normal service. Just 12% of chain venues opened their doors over the reopening weekend, reporting sales 41% below normal.

Karl Chessell, director of CGA, the consultancy that produces the data with the Coffer Group and the audit group RSM, said:

When bars and restaurants began reopening in the US during May, it was only after a couple of weeks that sales reached 54% of pre-Covid levels.

It is going to take time for the trade to return but this provides a foundation on which to build consumer confidence and adapt and improve operations.

The British Retail Consortium has also flagged that a no-deal Brexit will push up the price of food and household goods.

The cost of household staples, ranging from meat and cheese to school uniforms and drinking glasses, will substantially increase if there is no Brexit trade deal, my colleague Lisa O’Carroll writes.

In a report on the prospect of a no-deal Brexit, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said the public should be aware that no deal will mean a hike in the prices of not just luxury goods but “ordinary household goods that every consumer has to buy and replenish”.

The BRC has calculated that beef, which is imported in huge quantities from the Republic of Ireland, will go up in price by 48%, with cheddar cheese, another staple imported from across the Irish Sea, expected to cost 57% more.

Oranges from Spain will cost 12% more, while the price of cucumbers will rise by 16%. Trousers imported from Italy will have a 12% levy slapped on them , porcelain kitchenware will also go up by 12% and drinking glasses made in Poland up 10%.

About half of all food consumed from restaurants or shops comes from the EU, with 30% of produce in supermarkets from the bloc.

You can read Lisa’s full report here:

So here’s a rundown of what is reopening in England and and when:

Saturday 11 July: Outdoor pools. Outdoor theatre and music with limited audiences.

Recreational team sports like cricket can also start to return if they can show adequate Covid-secure plans, which the England and Wales Cricket Board has already submitted to government.

Monday 13 July: Beauticians, tattooists, spas, and tanning salons, and other “close contact services” like nail bars.

However, some face-to-face services like face waxing, eyelash treatments, make-up application and facial treatments are not yet allowed.

Saturday 25 July: Indoor gyms, swimming pools and sports facilities.

However, there is new guidance on spacing out and cleaning equipment, plus limiting the number of people in facilities and smaller class sizes.

It’s red across the board as stock markets open for trading in Europe:

• FTSE 100 is down 0.6%
• FTSE 250 is down 0.5%
• France’s CAC 40 is down 0.6%
• Spain’s IBEX is down 0.5%
• Germany’s Dax is down 0.4%