Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 3.7% today. Elsewhere, the Stoxx Europe 600 jumped by 2.9%.

However, nobody knows what the next few days will bring. There is no longer any doubt that in the future we will be talking about the stock market crash of early March 2020. The coronavirus crisis is a gigantic reality check for investors. They are starting to realize that markets have been thriving due to the fact that any weakness in the global economy has been masked by low interest rates. Cheap money has helped assets reach super high prices but hasn’t significantly supported investment or productivity.

The WHO is close to declaring a pandemic, but with a message of hope since "this would be the first pandemic that could be brought under control", according to the organization. The increase in the number of cases is inevitable but there is no explosion at this stage. Having said that, I, like many, am still taken aback by the situation in Italy, where the mortality rate of the virus remains much higher than in other countries and the number of cases is rising faster than elsewhere. Epidemiologists generally explain that the Italian population is older and more vulnerable (25% of the population is over 65 years old) and that the initial outbreak was dealt with too late. In an attempt to make up for this delay, the transalpine authorities yesterday evening extended the flow control measures to the entire country.

In the United States, Donald Trump is stepping up his contacts with business leaders and has his teams working on measures to mitigate the consequences of the coronavirus. Washington will also have to look at the myriad of shale oil players, shaken by the radicalization of the Saudi position. In China, authorities reported only 19 new cases of coronavirus yesterday. President Xi Jinping even visited Wuhan today, where it all began.

Measures have also been taken by the central banks. The FED pushed its Open Market operations to new records, to 112.932Bn. The BOJ also tried to support the market by buying JPY 101.4bn of ETFs. Analysts are also anticipating further rate cuts. Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan expect the ECB to cut rates on Thursday and Goldman Sachs is expecting another 50 basis points at the next FED meeting.

Meanwhile, the arm-wrestling match between Saudi Arabia continues. The Russian Ministry of Finance announced yesterday in a press release that the country would be able to last 10 years with a barrel between $25 and $30, thanks to the $150 billion Russia National Wealth Fund. But despite the government's confidence, this battle is still likely to have an impact on the population. The country was heckled yesterday on the currency market. The ruble gave up as much as 10% against the dollar in yesterday's session (compared to Friday's close), forcing the central bank to sell foreign currencies to reduce volatility.

Today, on the agenda, we have French industrial production, quarterly employment figures and the latest reading of euro-zone GDP. No major indicators are expected from the United States.