Investors are talking of 'green shoots' of recovery and of positive 'second derivatives of economic activity' (continuing economic contraction is the first, negative, derivative, but the slower rate suggests that the bottom is near).

As a result, stock markets have started to rally in the US and around the world. Markets seem to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel for the economy and for the battered profits of corporations and financial firms.

This consensus optimism is, I believe, not supported by the facts (...)