Fed Worries Worsen, PBOC Goes Easy on Gas, Trade Talks: Eco Day

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

• The Federal Reserve’s updated forecasts show policy makers becoming even more cautious toward the economic outlook, says Carl Riccadonna, as U.S. consumer confidence declined for the fourth time in five months
• San Francisco Fed chief Mary Daly joined her colleagues in supporting patience on future interest rate moves. Here’s a summary of recent remarks by Fed officials
• The People’s Bank of China is expected to ease policy less aggressively in 2019 compared with the previous year, say analysts
• U.S. and Chinese officials resume high-level trade talks this week as they close in on a deal that could just be the first step in the long road to economic peace
• Japan’s basket of goods and services that make up core inflation is chock-full of items the central bank has little chance of influencing
• When Adrian Orr took the helm of New Zealand’s central bank a year ago today, hopes were high that he’d usher in a new era of transparency and engagement on interest rates. That hasn’t quite happened
• “Bad.” That’s what Karin Greulich, a shop assistant in the southern German town of Konstanz, thinks about low rates
• The uncertainty surrounding Thailand’s election outcome threatens to set back the economy’s grinding recovery from the 2014 coup
• In a world of persistently low inflation and slowing economic growth, central banks are finding a useful instrument in their toolboxes to curb financial risk
• Drowning in debt, freaked-out Canadians are bracing for a reckoning

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Heath in Sydney at mheath1@bloomberg.net

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

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