Japan's 10-year yield touched 3 percent. The Bank of Japan decides Friday.

Daily Take

Japan's 10-year government bond yield traded through 3 percent in Tokyo on Tuesday morning, touching 3.025 percent, a level Reuters-sourced reporting puts at its highest since September 1996. The reported reason was fiscal. The government was finalizing an outline for a consumption-tax cut and household payouts with no stated funding, on the eve of a cabinet reshuffle. The central bank, which decides Thursday into Friday, sat in the background. The yen weakened into the move, with USD/JPY near 154.8 in the early US premarket. Two lines were tested inside 24 hours this week, and they carry very different weight. Gold's came at an official settlement Monday night: the first close below $4,400 after seven straight above it. Japan's came on a morning touch that no official series has yet recorded. The finance ministry publishes Tuesday's figure on Wednesday. Until then the touch shows where the pressure is. It does not yet show what holds.

WHAT MONDAY'S SETTLEMENTS DECIDED

Monday's official prints sorted the weekend cleanly. Brent's front contract held its gain into the settlement, about 1 percent higher on the day, so the war premium that appeared early Monday survived the session. Gold did the opposite. It settled 1.3 percent lower with the dollar firmer, ending a run of seven settlements above $4,400 and leaving the metals sold, rather than bought, into a chokepoint week. The demand side of the oil story arrived the same morning. China's refiners processed about 13.9 million barrels a day in August, up sharply from July's trough and still 6.9 percent below a year earlier, and both the International Energy Agency and OPEC cut their September demand views again. Oil sits above $100 a barrel on a demand base that the agencies now agree is shrinking in 2026. The Federal Reserve decides Wednesday, and our settlement-based estimate makes a quarter-point hike close to certain.