Fed Loses Patience, Asia Hikers Turn Cutters, Rate Bets: Eco Day

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

• The Federal Reserve signaled it was ready to lower interest rates for the first time since 2008, citing “uncertainties” that have increased the case for a cut as officials seek to prolong the near-record U.S. economic expansion
• Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said he intends to serve his full four-year term, after President Donald Trump asked White House lawyers earlier this year to explore options for removing him
• The world’s biggest bond market has further marching orders for Powell and his colleagues: don’t dawdle on those cuts; this chart shows that traders are now certain of an easing as soon as next month -- our economists say a July cut is no sure thing
• Indonesia is on track to join the Philippines in a new monetary-easing cycle as a darkening global outlook forces Asia’s most aggressive interest-rate hikers of recent times to reverse course
• Two-thirds of jobs in the developing world are at risk from new technologies. And in Southeast Asia at least, women will fare worse than men
• New Zealand’s economic growth rate held at a five-year low in the first quarter, leaving the door open for the central bank to cut interest rates again
• Brazil held its benchmark interest rate at a record low as policy makers await the advance of a crucial pension overhaul proposal

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, Henry Hoenig

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