Global borrowing costs fell to their lowest levels on record this week, priming the world with cheap money to combat the increasing risk of a coronavirus pandemic as growth slows and recession concerns mount. 

Official policy rates, based on the GDP-weighted average of 38 central banks around the world, slipped to just over 3% this week following the Federal Reserve's surprise 50 basis point rate cut on Tuesday and a similar, yet scheduled, move from the Bank of Canada on Wednesday. The cuts have also lifted the value of bonds around the world trading with a negative yield to just under $15 trillion. 

Globally, COVID-19 cases have risen past 95,000, with infections accelerating notably in Italy, Iran and South Korea, and the death toll has been estimated at just under 3,300. In the U.S., coronavirus cares were estimated at 160 following the death of an elderly woman in California. 

"What started out as a supply chain shock for the US has morphed into a financial shock, as markets recognise that the coronavirus will have a much broader impact on the global economy," said ING economist James Knightley, who expects two more 25 basis point cuts from the Fed before summer. "The concern now is that the fear factor surrounding the outbreak will change corporate and consumer behaviour, prompting a wider demand shock too." 

"While we doubt rate cuts will make a meaningful boost to aggregative demand, they may help to mitigate some potential strains in the financial system and lift sentiment," he added.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yields were marked at 0.947%, in early Thursday dealing, after touching an all-time low of 0.905% immediately following the Fed's emergency rate cut on Tuesday. 

The broader economic impact, meanwhile, continues to be assessed, with the International Monetary Fund trimming its global growth forecast by 0.4 percentage points Wednesday, to 2.9%, a level that would be the slowest pace of advance since 2009.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva also cautioned that the COVID-19 related pullback could intensify in the coming months, but added that "how far it will fall and how long the impact will be is still difficult to predict".

Yesterday's 1,100 point rally for the Dow, however, in a week that includes the two biggest single-session gains in history, suggest risk investors are either too attracted to current valuations, or simply blind to the broader risks the coronavirus outbreak carries for the global economy.

"The stock and the bond markets are like two heavy-weight champs duking it out," TheStreet's founder Jim Cramer, told his Mad Money audience on CNBC last night. "In one corner, you have a stock market that's been viciously over-sold, in the other corner, you've got a bond market that is screaming that we're too complacent; that we're not out of the woods just yet." 

While debate rages over whether the cuts -- from the Fed or anyone else -- will inoculate the world from the economic symptoms of the coronavirus, there's little doubt that investors are seeking even more rate support from policymakers in the coming weeks.

Futures prices pointing to a 10 basis point rate cut in the European Central Bank's overnight deposit rate -- which already sits at a record low of -0.4% -- when it meets on March 12 in Frankfurt, and a 100% chance of a follow-up rate cut from the Fed when it meets later this month in Washington.

The Bank of Japan, which starts its own two-day policy meeting on March 18, has vowed to "carefully watch economic and market developments, and take appropriate action", including a new corporate lending facility, while the People's Bank of China could deliver targeted rate cuts and possible business loan relief when it meets on March 20.