Japan hiked and the yen fell anyway. Mexico held and the peso lost 3.2%.
This market only respects dollar rates.

The Bank of Japan raised rates to 1.25% on Sept 18, the highest since 1995, but two of nine members voted against and Governor Ueda promised nothing more, so the yen fell instead of rising. It lost another 1.7% against the dollar this week, taking USD/JPY to 158.8, close to the 160 line where intervention risk returns.

Standing still cost even more. Banxico voted unanimously on Sept 24 to hold at 6.5% and explicitly declined to follow the Fed; the peso lost 3.2% on the week, including a 1.37% drop on Sept 23, its worst day in six months. The Swiss National Bank held at 0% and the franc slipped 0.4%. Of ten major currencies, only the won rose against the dollar.

The average yield on Bloomberg's global government bond index rose to 3.99% on Wednesday, close to its highest since 2007. UK gilt yields hit a post-2008 high, Japanese government bonds held above 3% and the German 10-year reached its highest since 2011. The causes arrived together: heavy issuance, an oil shock reviving inflation, and central banks still hiking.

The prices tell the story: US long Treasuries (TLT) lost 2.4% on the week, emerging-market dollar bonds (EMB) 1.3% and non-US government bonds (BWX) 0.7%. No bond was safe this week.

Korea's KOSPI gained 2.7% as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix absorbed selling from retail and foreign investors and held the 7,000 line. Taiwan rose 1.8% and the Nikkei 225 2.1%.

In the same region, the Hang Seng fell 1.0% for a third straight weekly loss: on Sept 23 reports of a Beijing data-security probe into DeepSeek and Moonshot AI knocked it down 1%, and the Trump–Xi summit ended Friday with little to show beyond a two-month extension of the trade truce. The Shanghai Composite lost 0.6%.

In local currency most of the world rose: Korea +2.7%, Mexico +2.6%, Japan +2.1%. In dollars the picture changes. Mexican stocks rose 2.6% but the peso fell 3.2%, so a dollar investor lost about 0.8% this week; the Nikkei's 2.1% shrinks to about 0.3% after the yen's slide. Europe rose modestly (Stoxx 50 +1.1%, DAX +0.4%), while India, Brazil, Australia and Hong Kong fell.

The dollar index rose 0.75 to 101.0. The biggest losers were the Mexican peso (-3.2%), the yen (-1.7%) and the Australian dollar (-1.5%), three currencies with the same problem: domestic rates that cannot keep up with America's. The yuan barely moved (-0.06%) under tight management. The won was the only major currency to gain on the dollar (+0.9%), supported by chip exports and inflows.

The US 10-year yield rose 16 basis points to 5.17% and pulled the world up with it. Monthly data show UK and Australian 10-year yields were already near 5% in August, above America's, with Germany at 3.2% and Japan at 2.9%.

Central banks have split into two camps: the Fed, the ECB and the Bank of Japan are hiking; Switzerland and Mexico are waiting; and the Reserve Bank of Australia is widely expected to hike to 4.60% next Tuesday. The waiters all paid for it in their currencies this week.

Brent edged up 0.4% to close at $104 while WTI fell 7.9% to $92, widening the gap to about $12: hopes for a US–Iran truce hit the US benchmark while Middle East supply risk propped up the global one. Rising real yields weighed on precious metals, with gold down 2.3% and silver 3.5%; natural gas rose 9.8% and copper 1.2%. Bitcoin gained 3.6%, tracking tech.