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Trump’s Fed Pick, U.K. Stimulus, Swiss Pain: Eco Day

Trump’s Fed Pick, U.K. Stimulus, Swiss Pain: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) --

Welcome to Friday, Europe. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help get you through to the weekend:

  • Check out our big economic reads for the week
  • Germany publishes fourth-quarter GDP data, and while the forecast is for slight growth of 0.1%, a sizable minority of economists in Bloomberg’s survey expect a contraction. That would be the second in the space of a year and leave the economy in a weakened state even before the coronavirus outbreak
  • President Donald Trump’s pick for the Federal Reserve Board, Judy Shelton, came under fire from Republican lawmakers on Thursday, signaling trouble ahead for her nomination
  • The Swiss National Bank is in a bind about how to rein in the franc’s unwanted strength without being labeled a currency manipulator by the U.S.
  • Less than a month before a U.K. budget intended to set out Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit economic vision, the reset button has been hit
  • Sajid Javid never saw it coming. Britain’s finance minister began his day expecting to be confirmed in his position as a mere formality, but instead brought his sudden resignation
  • The weak link in eastern Europe’s economic advance is being exposed by the malaise afflicting its richer neighbors
  • Will a virus-induced slowdown in China’s growth mean a stall elsewhere? At least in the first quarter, almost certainly yes, writes Tom Orlik, who draws on a large-scale model of the global economy to see where spillovers might be greatest
  • Japan’s economy likely suffered its biggest contraction since 2014 at the end of last year, leaving it vulnerable as fallout from China’s viral outbreak threatens to turn a one-quarter-slump 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: Paul Jackson at pjackson53@bloomberg.net, Alexandra Veroude, Michael Heath

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