Market pulse: Stuart Fitzgerald on the key trends in the Irish SME sector

As an NHS commissioner Audrey Mc Donnell played a senior role in Britain battling swine flu. In her second column for the Currency, she writes that to control the infection and to protect staff, Ireland should move to the highest level of preparedness as soon as possible.

The impact of the virus has changed everything. Even the ECB know that with its pledge to buy up public and private debt. We have no comparison. Will caution cause a worse crisis to ensue, and do we need a new programme for economic expansion after Covid-19?

Amid heightened international agitation by foreign governments over the global tax code, our Mapping Multinationals series showed just how crucial Ireland is to the global operations of many global titans – and how crucial their success is to us. But have we gone too far?

Algorithmic trading and risk parity strategies perform in rising and falling markets. Unless of course, volatility in all asset classes rises at the same time in an aggressive manner, and the prices of stocks and bonds fall at the same time - like what happened in recent days.

Ryanair won’t rule out full grounding of its fleet. Flutter Entertainment warned of a £90-110 million hit to full-year earnings. Willie Walsh postponed his IAG retirement. But if you want to see the real panic stalking the market, look just what happened to Penneys owner ABF.

The collapse in returns available from fixed income assets is a major challenge, and the coronavirus shock has driven them even lower. Meanwhile, the attraction of positive, growing and sustainable equity income is compelling. Are we on the cusp of a historic shift by long-term investors from Fixed Income to Equity Income?

As pubs pull down the shutters and businesses go into lockdown, there will be little alternative but to run huge deficits and expand the size of the state.

Oil prices may easily decline below $30 per barrel in the weeks ahead. Covid-19 could spread materially beyond Italy, meaning that a whole range of new quarantine measures may be undertaken by the likes of France, the UK and Germany. If this comes to pass, oil prices may decline to the mid-20s.

As a NHS commissioner Audrey Mc Donnell played a senior role in Britain battling swine flu, an influenza pandemic that impacted millions of people globally before it was contained. In her first column for The Currency she looks at the enormous strategic challenge for Ireland of fighting the coronavirus.

Rather than understanding the coronavirus as the death knell for globalisation, I prefer to think of it as an opportunity to consider something new. If we start seeing more global issues come to the fore, Ireland, as a small, open, fragile economy, can be a large part of that new thing.