0/ When I tweeted this a week ago some people thought I was too optimistic. We are now seeing clear signs of curve flattening across Europe. In the next 2-3 weeks, the narrative in Europe will shift to when individual countries end their lockdowns.
1/ In Europe, it is now clear that we are past the peak of daily new cases and daily deaths. While active cases have yet to peak, we are probably a few days to a week away from that. There is light at the end of the tunnel and a clear path to recovery.
2/ The trends are broadly consistent with what we witnessed in China ie. daily new cases peaked within 2 weeks of lockdown with 2 exceptions (France took 18 days while Netherlands took 21 days). 
3/ Active cases in China peaked on Day 27 and the trends in Europe suggest most should see peak active cases within 1 month from the start of lockdown. Active cases are already declining in Austria and Switzerland while countries are within days from peaking.
4/ China's experience shows that active cases tend to drop quickly once it hits peak. After 1 week: 82% of peak, after 2 weeks: 52%, after 3 weeks: 31%, after 4 weeks: 15%. China went from 58,016 active cases at peak on 17 Feb to 8,967 cases on 16 Mar to 2,161 cases on 30 Mar.
5/ This consistency in the data bodes well for the US. 30 of 52 States were effectively on lockdown from Apr 1 or roughly 80% of the population. Assuming the lockdown is adhered to, US new daily cases should peak by mid April and active cases should peak by the end of April.
6/ Just as China did a few weeks ago, Germany is now considering when and how to end the lockdown without risking a resurgence. cnbc.com/2020/04/06/cor….
Other European countries will be debating the same in the coming 2-3 weeks as conditions improve further.
Other European countries will be debating the same in the coming 2-3 weeks as conditions improve further.
7/ In terms of other large population centers, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria and Russia have all gone into lockdown in the past week (all <1500 cases) and there are signs that daily new cases have either peaked or are close to peaking in these countries.
8/ The 2 large population clusters that have not imposed nationwide lockdowns are Brazil and Indonesia. In Brazil, some local governors have ignored the President's uguidance and ordered people to stay at home so hopefully that proves effective.
9/ While the lockdowns will no doubt have a major impact on the economy and jobs that will take a few quarters to restore, markets tend to look beyond the near term and anticipate a recovery. In the past week, we have seen some of that risk appetite come back.
10/ However, once we get past the initial bounce, the market is likely to get pulled back and forth as it attempts to weigh the incrementally positive Coronavirus datapoints with the incrementally negative economic datapoints.
11/ So the equity markets are unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels until the economic data gets substantially better. For crypto markets, we will likely see divergence from the equity markets from here unless markets seize up again.
12/ The imminent halvings of BCH (1 day away), BSV (3 days away) and BTC (days away) are likely to act as catalysts for these coins specifically and crypto assets in general. That is likely also the main reason we have seen a steady inflow of USDT/USDC in the past two weeks.
