Good morning from the Financial Times.

Today is Thursday, April 23rd,

and this is your FT news briefing.

Oil prices rebounded yesterday

after a warning from US President Donald Trump.

And as some American companies consider reopening,

US business groups are worried about the legal risk of exposing employees to coronavirus.

Then we'll look into why Russian oligarchs are expected to help the state

financially in these trying times. But first, it's estimated that about $275 billion of corporate

bonds are at risk of losing their investment grade status within the year.

The F.T. Martin Arnold explains why the European Central Bank is changing its rules

when it comes to these so-called fallen angels. I'm Mark

Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day. So the ECB has changed its collateral rules for the second time in two weeks and this time it has said that it will now accept so-called

fallen angel bonds. These are bonds that lose their investment grade credit

rating as collateral.

So previously, the ECB has only accepted bonds

that have an investment credit rating for collateral

from banks in return for which it grants them very cheap loans and it's

concerned that access to this ultra-cheep liquidity which is particularly vital during

this coronavirus crisis could be restricted if a lot of these

corporate bonds and also sovereign bonds are downgraded because of the economic crisis that we're facing and

therefore these bonds would no longer qualify as collateral.

...