Fed Pressure, Down Under QE, First Slump Since Suharto: Eco Day

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

• The tightly contested U.S. election puts pressure on the Fed to deploy even more monetary stimulus to support the economy under a divided government. Chair Jerome Powell will likely avoid discussing election results at Thursday’s press conference and instead stress the urgency for further fiscal support, writes Yelena Shulyatyeva
• The Reserve Bank of Australia’s new quantitative easing program is set to close in on the Federal Reserve’s when measured against the size of the economy, highlighting the scale of its latest stimulus
• Indonesia is set to record its first recession since the Asian financial crisis more than two decades ago as the economy buckles under the weight of Southeast Asia’s worst coronavirus outbreak
• Joe Biden won Michigan and Wisconsin, putting him on the brink of taking the White House, hours after the president’s team opened legal fights to stop vote counting in at least two states
• Chinese President Xi Jinping tried to reassure international businesses that he’s committed to open trade, amid concerns the new ‘dual circulation’ strategy mean it’s set to become more insular
• India has scaled back expenditure, including on productive assets that aid economic growth, as the government is confronted with the risk of its budget deficit blowing out
• The Bank of England is poised to announce a new round of monetary stimulus with a morning decision as the U.K. starts another lockdown
• More monetary stimulus from the ECB is needed to support the economy, Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel said
• Spain’s government is too optimistic in its economic forecasts for next year and may need to revise its projections for output, the deficit and unemployment, the country’s central bank chief said
• Denmark says it’s found a new strain of Covid-19 that might hamper efforts to develop a vaccine, after an outbreak in the country’s mink population triggered a mutation of the virus

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.