Panic grips the stock markets

Even though the peak of the epidemic in China – where it broke out in January – has now passed and the situation there is slowly returning to normal, the rest of the economic world only woke up to the threat it posed at the end of February, especially once Europe and the US became the epicentres of new cases. The situation in Italy, where mistakes early on most likely exacerbated the spread of the contagion across the continent, had the effect of dragging the indexes down in two waves, the first of which came in the last week of February, although the declines were moderate compared to what was to come. Then, at the end of February, many analysts opined that this was a good opportunity to buy and that the prospects for growth in March were still realistic. However, as they pointed out at the time, the blue chip WIG20 index was then above 1,900 points and would not be pushing its head over the 2,000 line. Just over a fortnight later, the WIG20 had actually slumped to around