G-20 Talks, Bullying Practices, Unaffordable Housing: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) --

Welcome to Friday, Americas. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help get your day started:

• Top trade negotiators from the U.S. and China are meeting at the G-20 ahead of the much-anticipated summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping on Saturday
  • Xi has already fires shots at the U.S. before meeting Trump, warning against “bullying practices,” but not mentioning the U.S. president directly
• Trump wants a weaker dollar to help boost exports, and is counting on the Federal Reserve to help make that happen. But Jerome Powell has made clear it’s not his job
• Economists now expect the Fed to cut interest rates multiple times this year -- coming round to the view held by investors, though they haven’t gotten all the way there yet
  • Separately, it’s too early to know whether policy makers should cut and whether such a reduction should be a quarter or half percentage point, San Francisco Fed chief Mary Daly said
• Blame increasingly unaffordable housing in wealthier U.S. areas -- and relatively meager wages in less-affluent ones -- for the long-run decline in the share of Americans relocating around the country
• Stockpiling drove the British economy in the first quarter as companies and consumers fearing an imminent no-deal Brexit sought to head off potential supply disruptions, figures published Friday confirm
  • U.K. consumer confidence took another dip in June as Britons became more pessimistic about their personal finances in the face of Brexit uncertainty.
• Germany’s Jens Weidmann has forged ahead in the race to lead the European Central Bank after he unexpectedly backed President Mario Draghi’s crisis-fighting program, according to Bloomberg’s latest survey
• Euro-area inflation was unchanged well below the ECB’s goal in June, despite a faster-than-expected pickup in underlying prices
• Finally, here’s our catchup of what happened in the world economy this week

To contact the reporter on this story: Zoe Schneeweiss in London at zschneeweiss@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O'Brien at fobrien@bloomberg.net, David Goodman

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