While the economy is recovering faster than we originally expected, and the financial sector returned pretty quickly to stable functioning— in significant part due to strong action from governments and central banks around the world—the shock of the COVID event was by many measures the strongest in recorded history, and for a while in the spring the outcome was—as the Duke of Wellington said of Waterloo—"a damn, close-run thing."
For some time, those closest to the events were too involved in fighting the fire to pull together an account of what had happened and what lessons we might learn. But at this point, it is now possible, and I believe valuable, to assess what happened in the financial system in March and April, which parts of the system came under stress, and why.