COVID-19: Daily Dashboard

* LO estimate or reported figures
Sources: Bloomberg, IMF, World Bank, Lombard Odier calculations

Public health

• The global number of confirmed cases grew at a pace of about 4% while new confirmed deaths increased by 8%, with rates continuing to show improvements on a trend basis in most heavily affected countries

• China’s epidemic curve remains stable, with 46 new symptomatic cases and 64 new asymptomatic cases reported by the National Health Commission on 15 April. Imported cases accounted for 34 out of 46 new symptomatic cases

• In other industrialized Asian regions, active test-and-trace measures have been combined with widespread mask wearing and good social distancing. South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong reported 22, two and four cases respectively

• France reported a large number of fatalities, 1,438 confirmed deaths, although the number released yesterday did not refer to a 24-hour period as it includes unreported deaths from previous days, possibly due to an Easter holiday effect. The number of hospitalizations and intensive care unit (ICU) cases fell for the first time

• In Italy, case growth continued to run at a sub-2% rate, with 2,667 new confirmed cases reported yesterday, which is the lowest number seen in a month

• In Lombardy, the regional government is submitting a plan to the national government for a gradual reopening starting on 4 May

• In New York, the situation continued to improve with fewer hospitalizations, ICU cases and intubations. New York State is supplying ventilators to other states

• Germany will gradually start reopening secondary schools, small shops and hairdressers from 3 May. Bars and restaurants will reopen later, while no large gatherings such as festivals can take place until at least the end of August

• Luxembourg will also gradually reopen its economy from 20 April on condition that new infections remain low

• In the US, President Trump is set to announce guidelines today for states to reopen. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has imposed the use of facemasks in situations where social distancing is not possible.

• Japan’s epidemic curve spiked again on 15 April with 741 new cases. We attribute this to a staggered testing schedule, but clearly the country needs another week or two of stabilization before the situation looks under control

• Similarly, Singapore is still seeing an elevated epidemic curve due to the ongoing cluster management of migrant workers’ residences. We expect the situation to calm in a week or two.

Monetary and fiscal measures

• The G20 group of finance ministers and central bank governors committed to suspend debt payments from the world’s poorest countries and to work with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to make sure that liquidity issues do not create a solvency crisis.

Economic impact

• Macroeconomic data releases in the US begin to show the scale of the contraction. March retail sales fell by -8.7% on a monthly basis, while industrial production contracted by -5.4% month-on-month, the largest drop recorded since 1946.

• The International Energy Agency projects an annual drop in oil demand of 9.3 million barrels per day this year, given the effects of lockdowns and other containment measures

• The IMF projects a significant increase in public debt as a result of the crisis and national responses. It forecasts gross government debt as a percentage of GDP to rise from 83% in 2019 to 96% in 2020.

Portfolio positioning

• The trend has turned more positive in the past days, but we do not believe that all the conditions for a sustained equity market rally are in place just yet. We continue to monitor the slowdown in European and US infection rates and the likelihood of a second wave of infections in Asia. Market attention will gradually shift away from the outbreak and towards exit strategies and the economic impact. There are both negative and positive catalysts ahead: positive Covid-19 developments may be mitigated by worrisome news flow including weak economic data, dividend cuts and credit rating downgrades

• We continue to adjust our portfolio exposures. Most recently, we have increased exposure to policy-backed, undervalued assets, such as investment-grade credit

• We have also readjusted our global equity exposure in line with our tactical targets, and rebalanced our regional equity allocation by reducing our position in global emerging markets and increasing exposure to Asian equity markets. We have taken profit on the short leg of the put spread trade.

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