Currency Wars, Xi’s Fighting Tone, Guidance Downplayed: Eco Day

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

  • Growing unease among global central banks about the slumping dollar has ignited speculation that a fresh currency war might be on the horizon
  • Chinese President Xi Jinping said nothing will come between the people and the Communist Party that has governed them for more than 70 years, setting a combative tone at a difficult moment in U.S.-China relations
  • Two Fed officials downplayed the chances of updated public guidance on the path of interest rates at their upcoming policy meeting
  • India hopes farming can boost its economy. But it may not be enough
  • The euro area’s recovery ran out of steam midway through the third quarter, with gauges pointing to contractions in Italy and Spain
  • Chinese developers are facing the biggest liquidity test in more than four years, exacerbating challenges brought on by stringent funding restrictions and a prolonged profitability drop
  • U.S. unemployment-claims figures gave a mixed picture of the labor market as the adjusted and unadjusted figures moved in different directions. Regular state jobless claims will become less of a leading indicator for the labor-market recovery, write Eliza Winger and Yelena Shulyatyeva
  • The Bank of England is touting the firepower it can use to deliver more stimulus as the U.K. enters what could be a chaotic final few months of 2020
  • France could extend the furlough program it created to protect jobs during the Covid-19 crisis, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said, indicating the government is ready to spend more than the long-awaited 100 billion-euro ($118 billion) stimulus plan
  • The U.S. trade deficit swelled to the widest in 12 years in July, with the surplus on services plunging to the lowest since 2012
  • Argentina’s economic recovery cooled in July amid a stricter Covid-19 quarantine and heightened uncertainty about President Alberto Fernandez’s policies
  • Women are starting to be paid almost as much as men — at least when they’re newly hired, a report shows

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