To hell and back

The panic reached its climax on March 12th. As the coronavirus spread rapidly through Europe and the US, the world’s largest economies went into a lockdown for almost two months. With the retail and service sector forced to shut up shop, the cancellation of large events and people instructed to stay at home, economic activity ground to a halt. Many economic indicators hit new lows as the worst ever during a slowdown or a crunch, regardless of whether this was hard statistics or soft data, such as sentiment surveys. The bottom was well and truly hit – as reflected in the stock market indexes in mid-March, after which the hard slog back up could get underway, although at the time we were still in lockdown. Partly thanks to the rapid reaction of the central banks and the governmental promises of substantial aid (as well as investors taking advantage of the price reductions to snap up bargains), the stock markets picked up a little despite the dreadful figures. In April, at the