RBA to Keep Powder Dry, Brexit Talks, U.K. Covid Winter: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) -- Welcome to Monday, Asia. Here's the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help take you start the week.

• Australia's central bank is expected to keep its powder dry for another month as it clears the airwaves and commentary pages for the government's anti-recession fiscal program in Tuesday's budget
• The stage is set for a showdown on Brexit at a European Union summit. French President Emmanuel Macron's reluctance to make concessions on fish is stirring concern among officials he could sink efforts to reach a wider trade accord as negotiators Monday being a two-week period of intense talks
• After months of criticism and sliding in the polls, Boris Johnson accepted that the public is angry with his handling of the pandemic, but he warned the U.K. still faces a “very tough winter” ahead
• The global economy is entering the final quarter of its worst year in living memory in a precarious state with the coronavirus threatening to wreak yet more destruction on labor markets
• Losses in the main U.S. stock indexes on Friday will go down in history simply as small ones in an otherwise choppy week. But assessed in more detail, they provide a remarkable example of the intense tug-of-war that now grips markets, writes Mohamed A. El-Erian
• The bad news is flowing without relent in the film industry, where a major theater chain is poised to close movie houses in the U.S. and U.K. and the next James Bond adventure has been pushed into April because of the pandemic
• At a time of year when many people in Japan should be getting out of the city to enjoy the changing fall colors and nip in the air, there's little holiday making going on. And the nation's treasured bullet trains are ailing
• Donald Trump's physician admitted to giving a misleading statement about the president receiving oxygen, the latest in a series of contradictory and confusing accounts about Trump's coronavirus infection
• The French government is planning to shut down bars in the Paris region and impose other new restrictions in the area as the country struggles to contain a spike of new virus cases and avoid a second nationwide lockdown, according to Agence France Presse

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