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Fed Fiscal Flag, Euro-Zone Incentives, U.K. Crisis Plan: Eco Day

Fed Fiscal Flag, Euro-Zone Incentives, U.K. Crisis Plan: Eco Day

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

  • Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is testifying in the Senate today. Yesterday, he continued to wave the fiscal flag carefully at a congressional hearing, saying that more support was likely to be necessary
    • U.S. state and local governments need additional help from Washington to cope with the fallout from the coronavirus crisis, but not nearly as much as the roughly $900-billion sought by Democrats in the House of Representatives
    • The Fed’s run-hot inflation approach is making waves in some corners
  • Euro-zone banks took 174.5 billion euros ($203 billion) in another dose of ultra-cheap funding as the European Central Bank gives them every possible incentive to keep lending to the pandemic-stricken economy
  • U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak will set out a new crisis plan to protect jobs and rescue businesses as the coronavirus outbreak forces Britain to return to emergency measures
  • Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to do “whatever it takes” to keep Canada’s economy afloat through the coronavirus
  • Chinese consumers are finally starting to spend again after the pandemic-induced slump, but the recovery is unbalanced and overly reliant on luxury goods, with poorer Chinese still cautious
  • The Bank of Japan expanded its balance sheet by 0.8% to a record 689.7 trillion yen in the past 10 days

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