11 March – 30 July 2020

The market crash caused by Covid-19 As told in the pages of Roma

From 11 March 2020 to 31 July 2020, I had the privilege of following – almost every day, with brief interruptions, for four months straight – and commenting on the performance of the financial markets for the daily newspaper Roma, the oldest daily newspaper in southern Italy.

Often referred to as the “thermometer” of a country's economy and state of health, it is important to clarify what they are not. They are not an index of well-being; if they indicate a rise in temperature, they say nothing about the fever or its origin, nor do they suggest treatments.

In these articles, I have reported on the oil crisis that saw oil prices fall below zero, the recovery fund – and, even then, I was trying to warn against a “mountain of billions without ideas” – there was the biggest stock market crash in Italian history, and QE, the merger between Ubi and San Paolo, we addressed, reported on and analysed the collapse of the indices and commodity futures, and on 30 July, the four giants of new technology (worth three trillion dollars and 22% of the US market at the time) were sued by the US Antitrust Authority.

The whole world has changed in these four months.