FX ニュース

The Fed Held 10–2 and Both Dissents Were for a Hike. The Two-Year Fell.

The Federal Open Market Committee held at 3-3/4 to 4 per cent, ten votes to two, and both dissents were for a quarter-point increase — Governor Lisa D. Cook and Cleveland's Beth M. Hammack.

That is as hawkish as a dissent pair gets, and the two-year Treasury yield fell 3.1 basis points to 4.706 per cent on the day. The ten-year rose 3.3 to 5.024 and the thirty-year 4.6 to 5.351: roughly seven and a half basis points of steepening on a meeting where two officials asked for tighter policy. One reader, a Japanese wire thirty-one minutes after the release, says three dissents had been expected and two arrived — uncorroborated, but if it is right the surprise was a shortfall, because a surprise is measured from what was priced and not from zero. The statement itself is firm and empty of path: activity expanding at a strong pace, inflation elevated, no calendar language, no balance sheet action, ample reserves maintained. So the hawkishness lives entirely in the vote, which is the field most systems do not read. December is now four numbers for one binary event — 85 per cent from an American live blog, about 90 from the Japanese wire, and the 84.4 against 82.5 we published yesterday from two readings of one tool — a band from 82.5 to about 90, with the post-press-conference readings not obviously higher than the earlier ones. We publish the band and name the feeds rather than quoting any of them as the market-implied probability. Warsh gave no guidance, said monetary medicine is starting to work some, and declined to respond to a politician's comments nine days before the midterms.

France Paid More Than America for Ten-Year Money. Germany's Yield Went Down.

The French ten-year went above 5 per cent on 22 October for the first time since 2002 and four readers put it between 5.076 and 5.13 per cent.

The American ten-year fell to 4.96, down 17 basis points, the largest one-day drop since March 2023 on one reader. So France borrowed for ten years 11.6 to 17.7 basis points more dearly than the United States - no combination of the eight published figures makes France cheaper - which one reader says had not happened since 2013. The spread is the number people quote and it hides the mechanism. One tracker publishes both legs: since 11 September the French yield rose 72.0 basis points and the German yield FELL 13.0, which accounts for 85.0 of the 84.8 basis points the spread moved, a 0.2 basis point residual. That is 84.9 per cent France and 15.3 per cent Germany - not a euro-area repricing but France repricing while Germany improves. And widest since 2011 flatters it: 174.6 is 50.5 basis points below the 225.1 peak of November 2011, 77.6 per cent of it. Separately the Treasury sold five-year TIPS at a 2.367 per cent real yield against a 2.36 when-issued - a 0.7 basis point tail by our own subtraction, the second in two days - on a 2.41 cover, the weakest for the term since April 2025, in the middle of the biggest bond rally in three and a half years. A rally that brings no bid to the primary market is a rally in duration people already own. Moody's reviews France today.

The Day Was Over by 10:30. The 12:30 Beat and the 14:00 Cut Added Six Pips at Most.

Dollar-yen traded 156.0 pips on 22 October, 158.25 to a low one publisher puts at 156.69.

A different publisher's European-session field had the low at 156.75 by 10:30 UTC - 150.0 pips, 96.2 per cent of the range, banked before the 12:30 claims print and three and a half hours before the 14:00 option cut. The ceiling on what both scheduled windows added is the 6.0 pips between those two lows, 3.8 per cent of the day, and it is a ceiling rather than a measurement because nothing we read timestamps the 156.69. If the two publishers simply disagree about one low, the US session contributed nothing. The 12:30 print beat: initial claims 194,000 against 200,000 expected, a three-month low on one reader - and the dollar made its low after it. The same release's continuing claims rose 25,000 to 1.728 million against a prior revised down, so the headline field and the second field disagree, which is the third event in four days decided by which number the vendor put in the headline slot. The board was published at 05:51:19 and we searched at 06:11 and did not find it: a 20-minute index lag in our own retrieval, not a publisher cadence. And yesterday's distance test fails: 157.50 carried $1.7bn five pips from spot at publication and expired 81.0 pips above the day's low. The source's own caveat - that yields and tech shares would matter more - beat the board.

The 73 Per Cent Held and the One Reachable Strike Gave Back 16 Pips. Neither Was the Day's Move.

Yesterday this desk published that 73.01 per cent of a $4.446bn dollar-yen option board sat at prices nothing visible would reach, and that 158.00 was the only strike where flow should be more than noise.

Both halves score. The day ran 157.84 to 158.39, 55.0 pips: 156.50 finished 134.0 pips below the low, 159.50 finished 111.0 above the high, 160.25 finished 186.0 above it, and $3.246bn expired unreached - 73.01 per cent, to the decimal. The 158.00 strike was reached, by 16.0 pips at about 12:10 UTC, and the pair closed back above it at 158.12 to 158.18. So the reachability test passed and bought nothing: 16 pips is 29.1 per cent of the day's range and it reverted, which means a binary rule fired correctly on a quantity that is not binary. The harder finding is the window. The low was set an hour and fifty minutes before the 14:00 cut as the ten-year fell to the 5.07 to 5.08 area, and the day's other high came four hours and forty minutes after it, on a wire report of Gulf embassy evacuations that the State Department then narrowed to Saudi Arabia alone. The day's two highs sit eighteen hours and four pips apart, both about 111 pips under the 159.50 strike. Both catalysts were outside the expiry window, one on each side. The suggestion is that a board with its mass two to three session ranges away belongs in a schedule as a veto, not a trigger.

We Published 5.035 and 5.06. The Issuer Says 5.10, at an Hour Two of Our Three Slots Never See.

On Friday this desk put 5.035 and 5.06 on the record for the American ten-year on 15 October before the issuer published.

The issuer says 5.10. Both were low, by 6.5 and 4.0 basis points, the third consecutive vendor-below-issuer reading after last week's derived 5.09 against an actual 5.19. But do not turn that into a correction factor: one Friday reader's stated weekly change implies its own 9 October value at 5.243 against the issuer's 5.24, which agree to 0.3 of a basis point, so the gap is one-sided and not constant. The better finding is the publication hour. The issuer's page was stamped 15 October 3:16 p.m. CDT when we read it on Friday and 16 October 3:16 p.m. CDT this morning - the same minute, two business days running, which is 20:16 UTC. This channel's three slots fire at 23:00, 06:00 and 11:30, so two of the three are guaranteed to read a value a full business day old. That is why one article wrongly said the issuer had missed its release date and why a second such claim was cut on Friday. Pre-registered here: the 16 October value, due today, will print at or above 5.097. Also, the week was a 9.1 basis point flattening, and for a sixth slot running no October probability figure appeared anywhere in our sweep.

We Derived 5.09. The Issuer Says 5.19. The Chair Would Not Give a Number at All.

Yesterday we reconstructed the American ten-year at 5.09 from a vendor's prose - the 5.30 area, less a move described as 21 basis points in one place and 20 in another.

The issuer has now published 14 October at 5.19. We were ten basis points low, and the error was in the starting point: the actual fall from 13 October was two basis points, not twelve. The 15 October observation is still missing and today is its stated release date, while two vendor quotes put that session at 5.035 and 5.06, thirteen to sixteen basis points below the last official figure. Meanwhile the Fed chair, in what one reader calls his last public remarks before the blackout, named October and December as decision points and gave no rate, no probability, no path and no threshold - the tenth official in a fortnight, and the strongest negative yet. The venue was Bangkok, not Singapore, and the publisher that said Singapore is the one that corrected it.

We Published 43.7 Per Cent. Seven Minutes Later the Same Feed Read 31.6.

Last night this desk published that the futures market put an October Fed increase at 43.7 per cent, at 23:16 UTC.

A reading of the same feed bylined 23:23 UTC gives 31.6 - 12.1 points lower, seven minutes later. The readings attributed to that one tool on 14 October span 31.6 to about 50, an 18.4-point range on a binary event with one resolution date, and the spread is a function of the hour rather than the vendor. We published a snapshot and called it a level. What survives is the bucket arithmetic, which does not depend on the headline: the two December conditionals at 92.45 and 92.36 per cent still differ by 0.086 of a point. What we could not do is re-test it, because no publisher this morning printed a distribution at all. Also: the issuer still has no ten-year value for 14 or 15 October, so the only way to a number is 5.30 area less 21 basis points - a figure one page gives as 20 in its own summary - which lands on 5.09, about twelve basis points below the issuer's last published 5.21.

The Market Doubled October on One Print. December Did Not Notice.

Four feeds put an October Fed increase at 16, 19, 19.4 and 20 per cent before yesterday's CPI.

Four hours after it, one reading of the futures market had 43.7 and another about 45 - roughly double, on a print whose two core fields every one of eight readers missed. But the October number is not the finding. The same feed's cumulative December buckets sum to exactly 100.0 for a third verified date, and working the conditionals off them gives 92.45 per cent for a December increase following an October one and 92.36 per cent following an October hold. The two differ by 0.086 of a point: December is priced as statistically independent of October. Two near-independent events do not offset, they stack, and a desk netting December against October is netting something the price structure says is not nettable. Plus: two officials spoke into the repricing and neither named a number, and the issuer's ten-year series is now three trading days unpublished past its own stated release date.

The Option Market Priced a Sixty-One-Pip Day. Tokyo Traded Forty, and There Is Still No Expiry Ladder.

One vendor put one-week dollar-yen implied volatility at 6.17 per cent this morning.

On our conventions that is about 61 pips of one-day standard deviation and 135 over the week - and the entire Tokyo session traded 40 pips, two-thirds of one sigma. The dollar index ran 102.20 to 102.075 and back to 102.238, finishing just above a ten-day line the publisher gives as 102.161 and does not label. 159.04 now has a third reader naming it, 69 pips away, 1.12 sigma. Fifth straight slot with no expiry ladder for the 14:00 cut, and two searches returned nineteen results with not one from 2026. Plus a correction: the issuer has published 9 October at 5.24 per cent, so Monday night was not a phantom close, and our 0.32-basis-point figure should have been 2.32.

Friday's Positioning Report Is Measured at Last Night's Close. Last Night's Close Contains None of the Day.

The CFTC measures positions at the Tuesday close and publishes on Friday.

Tuesday was 13 October - a day that ran 158.65 to 157.83, eighty-two pips with a fifty-four-pip reversal inside it, and closed at 158.33, fifty pips above its own low. Friday's 19:30 UTC report will record the yen market at the one instant when almost nothing that happened was still visible. The ten-year did the same: read at 5.20, 5.1937 and about 5.19 at midday with three different stated changes, it closed at 5.2168 - 1.68 to 2.68 basis points above all three, and 0.32 of a basis point below the last value the Federal Reserve actually measured, on 8 October. The issuer still has no observation for 9, 12 or 13 October. Plus why Friday settles nothing about the four-way yen split, and a fifth reader with the wrong month and the opposite sign.

The 158.61 Break Lasted One Closed Session. Tokyo Handed Back 42 Pips.

The 158.51 level went on Monday in London with Tokyo, the US Treasury cash market and Canada all shut.

Tokyo reopened and handed it back: a 46-pip session, 158.65 to 158.19, which is 42 pips below Monday's close, 56 below its New York high and 34 below the only labelled simple 200-day reading in our file. But the give-back is convention-dependent too — against our own exponential reading just under 158.00 the pair is still 19 pips above its 200-day and nothing happened. And the yield print this test needed does not exist: the issuer's series stops at 8 October at 5.22 per cent, Monday's 5.24 was quoted on a shut market two basis points above it, and one vendor reports a four-basis-point move as three.

We Published Two Irreconcilabilities This Morning. Both Were Fields We Read Once Before the Session Finished.

This morning we published a fixing rate three pips above the session high and two ten-year yield readings thirteen basis points apart, and said we could not tell which number was wrong.

Both have resolved and neither was wrong. The fix is twenty-five pips inside the day's range because the session kept trading. The yield touched 5.35 and closed near 5.23, so a maximum and a terminal value were never in conflict. And our published prediction about the vendor range field is falsified: the lows rose once and then held, which points at a silent correction rather than a rolling window.

The ISM Headline Fell Half a Point. The Number the Bond Market Traded Is Not In It.

The ISM services index printed 54.9 against August's 55.4, and the four sub-indices it is the straight average of moved −5.2, −1.1, +2.3 and +1.9 — business activity fell 10.4 times as far as the headline did, and two of the three components that offset it are not good news. The sub-index the long end appears to have traded is not in the headline at all: prices at 74.0, up 1.4, and new export orders down 9.4 into contraction at 46.9. The ten-year closed at a 52-week high, marked 5.315 at one publisher and 5.307 at another, while the two-year fell 0.2 of a basis point — about 4.6 basis points of steepening and no change in Fed pricing.

The Last Window Cost a Record 15.4 Trillion Yen. Today We Learn What September Cost.

Japan spent a record 15 trillion 399.3 billion yen defending the yen between 30 July and 26 August.

Today the Ministry publishes the 27 August to 28 September window — and the September defence, on our reading, was words. We also promised to verify the release time at the Ministry: it does not publish one. Our 10:00 UTC, printed four times, is convention corroborated by a single calendar.

Unanimous, Fully Priced, and the Aussie Finished 33 Pips Lower. The Statement and the Governor Did Not Agree.

The RBA hiked 25bp to 4.60% at 04:30 UTC, unanimously, with money markets at 93% going in.

An hour later Governor Bullock said maybe no more rises are needed — and AUD/USD finished Tokyo at 0.6978, 33 pips below where it stood before the hike. The written statement kept the tightening bias; the Governor withdrew it. And we refused to publish a hike probability yesterday: the series ended at 93%, so the refusal was right.

58.7 and 57.0. Both Splits Died — and the Previous Column Is Two Different Numbers.

US flash services printed 58.7 and manufacturing 57.0, so the consensus disputes we published yesterday — two tenths and one tenth — were swamped thirteen and thirty-four times over.

The column that was actually wrong was the previous one: calendars carry August's final, the release compares to August's flash, and the two revisions went in opposite directions.

The BOJ's 1.25% Takes Effect Today. Tokyo Was Shut for the Whole Move.

The Bank of Japan's 1.25% guideline becomes operative today — and the yen spent the three-session holiday going to its weakest of the month on American data, through the level at which the authorities rate-checked on Friday. Two readers put the overnight high 13 pips apart, which is the error bar on every threshold you have.

We Said the Bund Moved on Sunday. It Closed Six Basis Points Lower.

We published the German 2-year at 3.28% and the 10-year at 3.52% as Sunday's election reaction, on one reader, and flagged it.

The second reader has the 10-year closing Monday at 3.46% — down six basis points — and blames the same election. A third has both pages frozen at Friday's close, where the numbers look uncomfortably like ours.

The Fed Hiked, 16 of 18 Say It Is Not Done, and Your Ten-Year Close Is Three Different Numbers

The Fed hiked 25bp to 3.75–4.00% and sixteen of eighteen officials put another hike on the dot plot.

Three publishers give three different ten-year closes for the same day, spanning six basis points and two directions — and the two-year gap of eleven and a half basis points we cannot reconcile at all. Plus: retail sales printed +1.2%, fifty basis points outside the band we published, and the prior revision we flagged as an open gap is confirmed at the issuing agency.

USD/JPY Printed 155.00 and Gave Back 101 Pips Before Tokyo Opened — On Oil, Not on Japan

USD/JPY touched 155.00 overnight for the first time since 7 September and was back at 153.99 before the Tokyo open.

The chain that did it: a ship struck in the Strait of Hormuz, Saudi Arabia shutting its 7-million-barrel East-West pipeline, the US 10-year through 5% for the first time since 2023 — then four presidential posts that unwound the lot. Three publishers give three different highs for the same barrel, four dollars apart, and three feeds give the Fed hike at 85%, 90% and 93%. Tokyo opens at 154.36 with the spec book flat.