Lagarde’s Toolkit, Fed Pause, BOJ Pledge, China PMI: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) --

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

• Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell may not want to say it out loud, but it sure seems he thinks he has achieved a soft landing for the U.S. economy
• One of Christine Lagarde’s most important tools for stimulating inflation might be falling out of favor -- even before she gets to wield it as European Central Bank president
• Sabine Lautenschlaeger called for the European Central Bank to become more active in fighting climate change as she prepares to depart the institution
• U.K. consumer confidence matched a six-year low as Britons became less optimistic about their personal finances with Brexit looming, according to a new survey.
• The Bank of Japan strengthened its policy pledge on interest rates while leaving its main policy tools untouched, judging conditions in markets, prices and the economy to be sufficiently resilient with its existing stimulus
• A gauge of the outlook for China’s manufacturing sector dropped to the lowest level since February, underlining the uncertainty faced by businesses
• Hong Kong will release data underscoring what retailers, hoteliers and residents already know all too well -- that the economy has slipped into recession

To contact the reporter on this story: Enda Curran in hong kong at ecurran8@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nasreen Seria at nseria@bloomberg.net, Michael S. Arnold

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