Oliver Mangan: Interest rates set to be cut to stem economic fallout from coronavirus

After a stellar 2019, we warned in this column at the start of the year that investors seemed very complacent and were “ill-prepared for shocks, meaning they are vulnerable to unexpected bad news”.

However, we did not foresee the extent of the carnage of the past week. All the main stock markets plummeted by 12% to 3%, while 10-year US Treasury yields fell to record lows.