Here’s why the coronavirus crash is likely to end in inflation

The coronavirus pandemic has led to deflation as the world sits it out behind closed doors. But that will change, says John Stepek. And inflation will take off in a spectacular way.

Once lockdown ends, demand will come back rapidly © Getty

The coronavirus pandemic and the measures taken to thwart it, have taken a brutal toll on the global economy.

We heard yesterday that the UK’s GDP could collapse by a third in the second quarter if the lockdown continues for the full three months. And the International Monetary Fund expects to see the weakest global growth this year since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.