China Reneges, Fast Virus Rebound Risk, Das Does Draghi: Eco Day

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Welcome to Friday, Asia. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help take you through to the weekend.

• Global commodity trade plunged deeper into chaos as Chinese companies started walking away from purchase contracts because of the spread of the deadly coronavirus
• For businesspeople, the outbreak is producing a severe case of cognitive dissonance. Their eyes tell them things are bad: rising fatalities, history’s biggest quarantine, sealed borders, broken supply chains. But economists tell them the epidemic will lower China’s 2020 growth by just a couple tenths of a percentage point and global growth essentially not at all. But the quick rebound scenario might prove premature
• India’s central bank resorted to unconventional policy tools again, as it shored up efforts to bring borrowing costs down and boost demand in an economy on course for its weakest expansion since 2009
• The Fed and Treasury might be taking the first tentative steps toward the enhanced policy coordination that some economists say will be needed to combat the next recession
• U.S. markets are “utterly and completely unprepared” for the possibility that inflation might pick up after years of subdued price gains, hedge fund manager Ken Griffin said
• While moderating economic growth in 2020 could temper the pace of hiring, it won’t disrupt the gradual, upward sloping trend of wage pressures and labor-cost inflation, writes Carl Riccadonna
• China’s coronavirus response is having a marked impact on the economy. To track the spread of the outbreak, measures to contain it, and early signs of impact Bloomberg Economics has put together an annotated chart. A few points stand out, writes Justin Jimenez
• ECB chief Christine Lagarde said a decade of crisis fighting has left policy makers with few options for more stimulus, just as new concerns such as the coronavirus outbreak arise
• EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan had a “useful and constructive” meeting in Washington on Thursday with his U.S. counterpart, according to an EU official
• Global trade tensions have a new front: government contracts
• During Hong Kong’s Occupy protests in 2014, Aria listened to Lady Gaga, put on makeup and wore cute outfits, embracing the ubiquitous “Goddess of Democracy” moniker at a time when online polls asked whether the city’s few female leaders were wife or girlfriend material. Now she fights on the front line

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