What might be the largest margin call in history is causing consternation among those on Wall Street worried about hidden leverage and its potential to fry the financial system. The forced selling of more than $20 billion of apparently swap-linked shares at Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital has triggered a hunt for other areas of excess—from margin debt to options and bloated balance sheets—after stocks at the center of the fiasco plunged and investment banks warned of losses. Hwang’s travails are portrayed as everything from a long-overdue market comeuppance to an isolated case of risk-taking run amok. The blowup is an example of “leverage gone wrong,” said Sameer Samana of Wells Fargo, and perhaps an ominous sign of things to come. Nevertheless, the rising fear through the weekend that Monday would end in calamity was answered with something closer to a whimper. The S&P 500 Index was barely registering the weekend’s tribulations, its 57% rally since March 2020 intact. —David E. Rovella

Bloomberg is tracking the progress of coronavirus vaccines while mapping the pandemic globally and across America.

Here are today’s top stories

U.S. President Joe Biden said 90% of U.S. adults will be eligible to get a Covid-19 vaccine in three weeks and the number of pharmacies where shots are available will soon double. The announcement came as the federal vaccination effort took on a tone of increasing desperation as more states loosen restrictions in the face of rising infections—and the first signs appear of the torrent of hospitalizations and death that usually follows. Over the weekend, Trump administration health official Deborah Birx stated that except for the 100,000 Americans who died in the first wave, the massive U.S. death toll—which now stands at 550,000—could have been “decreased substantially” but for mistakes by former President Donald Trump and his aides, states and local officials. On Monday, Biden pleaded with governors to reinstate mask requirements as variants accelerate infection. Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fought back tears as she outlined the warning signals that may augur a fourth wave. The seven-day average for new daily cases is now almost at 60,000, up 10% from the prior week. Hospitalizations are also up, to about 4,800 a day from 4,600 a week earlier. Deaths, a lagging indicator, have also started to rise again. “I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom,” Walensky said. “Right now I’m scared.”

Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Photographer: Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

Doctors in Hungary, which currently has the world’s highest Covid-19 death rate, have rebuked the government over a plan to ease virus-related curbs as early as next week. Health officials in at least five Canadian provinces, including Ontario and Quebec, are halting the rollout of AstraZeneca’s vaccine to people under 55 over concerns it could lead to blood clots in rare circumstances. In real-world studies and not just the lab, Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna effectively prevented coronavirus infections, not just illness, with substantial protection evident two weeks after the first dose, the CDC said. Two doses of the vaccines provide as much as 90% protection against infection. Here’s the latest on the pandemic.

The U.S. is in “the closing stages” of deciding how to respond to a suspected Russian hack that penetrated multiple government agencies. Sullivan said the U.S. is considering “seen and unseen” responses to the attack, which also affected at least 100 U.S. companies.

Bill Ackman’s blank-check company will miss a self-imposed goal to find a target, but the activist investor is already eyeing a second SPAC once a deal is done.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rose after Visa said its payments network will use a stablecoin backed by the U.S. dollar to settle transactions, another signal that blockchain technology gains more acceptance in the established financial system.

Now that the nearly week-long saga to dislodge a giant container ship stuck in the Suez Canal is over, there’s the open question of how to address the stark reality pointed up by this world-trade stopping one-car accident.

The Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship, is accompanied by tugboats as it moves through the Suez Canal on March 29

Photograph: Suez Canal Authority

Global tourism can’t revive until more nations tame Covid-19. But at present vaccination rates, it will take years before many tourism-dependent countries vaccinate 75% of their population—the level at which viral transmission eases, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

What you’ll need to know tomorrow

What you’ll want to watch in Bloomberg Digital

How Nissan Crushed Ghosn Probe Whistleblower

Nissan Motor Co.’s former top lawyer, who led an internal investigation into alleged financial misconduct by Carlos Ghosn, tells Bloomberg News in an excusive interview how he endured retaliation, demotions and even corporate surveillance of his family after questioning the integrity of the probe. Former Global General Counsel Ravinder Passi, speaking for the first time about the arrest of Nissan’s celebrated ex-chairman Ghosn and his daring escape out of Japan, described what he views as a toxic corporate culture rife with fear, intrigue and reprisals for those who step out of line. “This is just not normal behavior,” said Passi of what he claims was heavy surveillance of his family. “This is a car company. This is not the KGB.” Read the story and watch the film here.

Ravinder Passi in London on March 11.

Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg

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