The question I keep getting (and I’m getting a lot of those questions from the media) is: Are we past the worst of this market crash? And my first answer is: “I don’t know.”

My second answer is: “If you want my best guess, I think we’re a good chance to have seen the lowest our stock market will go, but I’m no expert on the spread of a virus when the world is coping with a pandemic.”

If the Coronavirus data keeps getting better, as it has been very recently, then the stock market will do well fighting the gravitational pull on stock prices, driven by the uncertainty of this damn virus.

Helping put a safety net against huge falls are the stimulus packages around the world, with our most recent one taking the Government’s total rescue package to 16.4% of GDP. I’ve told you before that the Germans have gone for an unbelievable 30% of GDP and the Yanks are now around 10% and look likely to push another package pretty soon to boost infrastructure.

These packages reduce the costs of the containment policies. The fact our most recent one aims to get over 6 million workers back into employment is proof of that.

Clearly, if and when these workers can actually go back to their workplace and start catching public transport, filling up the food halls at lunchtime in the CBD centres, going to restaurants, pubs and sporting events, then economies will get back to normal and stock prices will start closing down the bear market.

Goldman Sachs has tried to guess how the US will grow over the rest of the year after the Dow Jones Index saw its worst quarter ever, down over 22%! The small cap index, the Russell 2000 has lost 31% over the quarter!

Goldman thinks the first quarter will now be down 9%. Before the virus hit town big time, the number was minus 6%. Quarter two is now tipped to be minus 34% compared to minus 24% previously. But they see a third quarter rebound of 19% against an old forecast of 12%.

And so for the year an old forecast of 3.7% ends up being a negative 6.2%, which is going to make Donald Trump’s re-election plans a whole lot harder. Bill Clinton made it famous — “It’s the economy stupid” — and Donald knows he’s going to have to spend more, if Goldman’s guesses are right.

We haven’t seen local guesses of growth yet. But as forecasting isn’t really tested under such crazy Coronavirus conditions with so many variables (including when infections and deaths in the US and elsewhere peak and when governments allow people to get de-locked), it’s too hard to rely on economists’ crystal balls.

What we have seen is that the comeback of the Chinese consumer isn’t as fast as we optimists would have liked, with stories that workers are going back to work. How this virus changes our attitudes and consuming patterns is anyone’s guess.

That said, we are seeing better virus data out of Italy. “Italy's lockdowns and stringent measures may soon see the country's coronavirus epidemic stabilise, but a vigilant follow-up will be required, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says,” abc.net.au reported overnight.

That’s good news for Italians but what about the economy and getting back to normal? “What we are likely to see, if you imagine the lockdown and stringent measures in Italy are now in place 2-3 weeks … we should start to see stabilisation because the cases we see today really reflect exposures two weeks ago,” WHO’s Dr. Michael Ryan told journalists at a virtual briefing in Geneva.

Italy isn’t out of the woods but the overall snapshot is on the improve.

“The death toll from the outbreak of coronavirus in Italy climbed by 812 to 11,591, the Civil Protection Agency said on Monday, reversing two days of declines in the daily rate,” the ABC revealed. “However, the number of new cases rose by just 4,050, the lowest amount since March 17, hitting a total 101,739 from a previous 97,689.”

These numbers are going to be vital for the stock market and they give us hope that the virus won’t spook the market to go below the lows seen in the next chart of our S&P/ASX 200 Index.

So what was Wall Street looking at overnight?

The good news was that President Trump pushing is for an infrastructure package. And there’s more good news on the race for Coronavirus treatments, or better still a vaccine.

The big negative is all about the course of the virus in the US. Until something convincing shows up, stocks could easily retest and beat the previous lows. We would follow Wall Street down, so people like me are closely watching US virus data.

There are competing guessing camps. The one I hope is right says the virus data improves in April and the worst is already behind us.

The next group think the combined infection and death numbers, combined with the economic effects of the closures, will take us back to the lows that happened on March 23. If the US doesn’t deliver on the kinds of infection and death reduction figures that say a peak happens in April, the stock market could easily retest past lows.

Right now a more positive take on stocks says our stock market is up 11.6%, after falling a whopping 36%. And the stimulus packages plus the actions of central banks, and banks generally, have put a floor under our stock market. However, if the virus numbers turn bad, it will mean more stimulus is needed to offset longer closures and businesses in trouble for longer.

If you want to buy stocks now, you have to believe the world and the US are winning the battle against the Coronavirus, and I think we’ll need at least two weeks before we judge that with any certainty.

I’m gambling we’ve seen the last of the lows for the S&P/ASX 200 but, as I say, it’s a gamble.