Tariff Pause, Saudis See Brent at $65, Coming Capex Cut: Eco Day

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

• The U.S. is unlikely to impose extra tariffs on a new $160 billion swath of Chinese goods including toys and smartphones come Sunday as negotiators work toward an agreement.
• Saudi Arabia isn’t counting on much of an uplift from crude prices in 2020. Next year’s budget was created under the assumption that Brent will average about $65 per barrel, calculates Ziad Daoud.
• U.S. manufacturers expect to reduce capital spending in 2020, the first pullback in investment since 2009. This would limit the rebound in the sector, even as profits are seen to improve.
• More than 5,600 retail jobs could be lost and thousands of stores shut down over the next six months, as protests in Hong Kong continue to disrupt retail sales.
• Stephen Poloz’s announcement that he won’t seek a second term as governor of the Bank of Canada kicked off the guessing game on who will succeed him in June.
• Sweden’s government averted a political crisis after opposition parties backed down from a threat to depose the employment minister in protest against the privatization of employment services.
• Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who broke the back of U.S. inflation in the 1980s and three decades later led President Barack Obama’s bid to rein in the risk-taking of commercial banks, has died. He was 92.
• Economics has changed throughout the 2010s with the financial crisis and the Great Recession dealing a blow to the discipline that still lingers 10 years later, writes Noah Smith.
• A big week ahead for President Donald Trump, trade, the global economy and financial markets, writes Shawn Donnan in the latest Terms of Trade.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alexandra Veroude in Sydney at averoude4@bloomberg.net

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

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