BOE’s Exit, Agile Fed in 2022, IMF’s Omicron Warning: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) -- Sign up for the New Economy Daily newsletter, follow us @economics and subscribe to our podcast.

Welcome to Monday, Europe. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help you start the week.

• The Bank of England is preparing to halt its almost 900 billion-pound ($1.2 trillion) quantitative easing program, leaving the future of what has become a controversial crisis-fighting tool shrouded in doubt
• Jerome Powell’s pivot toward a quicker withdrawal of stimulus paves the way for a more agile Federal Reserve in 2022
  • The winds of inflation in the U.S. strengthened further with consumer prices projected to show the largest annual advance in decades. Read what’s coming up in the global economy here
  • Also from the U.S., job growth registered its smallest gain this year while the unemployment rate fell by more than forecast to 4.2%
• The IMF sees “downside risks” to the global rebound it forecast and is concerned that new coronavirus variants may hinder the recovery
• The U.K.’s biggest business lobby cut its forecasts for growth this year and next as it warned rising costs and shortages are hampering the nation’s recovery
• U.K. Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan will press U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Tuesday to remove Trump-era tariffs on British steel and aluminum
• France will try to avoid any new health rules including a lockdown in the face of rising coronavirus cases and the spread of the omicron variant, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said
• Iceland is confronting the trouble that comes with having a pension system so successful in amassing savings for future retirees that it was recently rated the best in the world
• Chinese state media denied reports that Lithuania has been effectively blocked from exporting to China, as the dispute between the two nations over Taiwan worsens
• Australia’s central bank is likely to highlight the interval between building economic momentum and faster price gains as well as renewed risks from a new coronavirus variant in its final meeting of the year on Tuesday

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

With assistance from Bloomberg