Fed Easing Bets Surge, RBA Set to Cut, Factory Weakness: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) -- Welcome to Tuesday, Asia. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help get your day started:

• The Federal Reserve may need to cut interest rates soon to prop up inflation and counter downside economic risks from an escalating trade war, says St. Louis Fed chief James Bullard
• Indeed, investors are plowing into Treasuries on growing conviction that the Fed will cut borrowing costs this year
• Global manufacturing was the weakest since 2012 last month, a victim of mounting trade tensions and further reason to worry that the world economy is weakening
• Australia’s central bank is set to end an unprecedented pause in interest-rate cuts as it ratchets up efforts to revive inflation; meanwhile, productivity growth has slowed to a crawl
• An influential economist and former monetary policy maker endorses an average inflation target in a paper to be presented at the Fed’s two-day research conference that starts today
• The ECB will probably say that the first possible interest-rate hike will come later than previously indicated when officials announce policy this week, according to Oxford Economics

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Bourke in Sydney at cbourke4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nasreen Seria at nseria@bloomberg.net, Peter Vercoe

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