EDITOR'S NOTE
The coronavirus economy is a Walmart economy.
The retailing giant reported a 10% increase in fiscal first-quarter same-store sales and a 74% jump in e-commerce sales. The company also said it hired 200,000 people to clean stores, stock shelves and fulfill online orders.
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon broke the quarter down into three phases: 1) Stockpiling essentials, 2) Buying entertainment items such as puzzles and video games, 3) Acquiring office furniture and exercise equipment for stay-at-home routines. 
Retail sales offer a detailed reflection of how America has been living. Home Depot said its same-store sales rose 6.4% in the fiscal first quarter as homebound consumers improved their abodes - but it also faced a big spike in costs due to the pandemic.
Stocks fell on Tuesday, following Monday's more than 900-point gain in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as investors await the results of state-by-state reopenings.
“We’re going to see here fairly quickly how the opening goes," Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in testimony before the U.S. Senate on Tuesday. "It’s very hard to know.”
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