Overnight Desk Notes — Weekend Watch + Week Ahead
Hiya - Slowly getting back in the groove after a good vacation — a couple of folks asked what I was tracking overnight and into this week. Shoutout to the Friends and Family, hope you all are doing well - Never be in a Hurry to Lose money - Here's the rundown:
USDJPY — still a 159–160 defense.
Tokyo core CPI came in firmer (1.8% YoY in August vs. 1.7% in July, third straight monthly accel), which keeps BoJ September hike odds elevated — I'm at ~80%+ IMHO, and market pricing has it running close to that (~84%). But the differential vs. a hike-risk Fed keeps USDJPY bid regardless. Japan's MOF confirmed Friday (Aug 28) that the late-July/August intervention round totaled a record ¥15.39 trillion (~$96.5bn) for the July 30–Aug 26 window — the largest monthly total on record, on top of the earlier ¥11.73tn round from Golden Week. That bought a range, not a trend — this means we're still likely to see swings, especially with the roll into the new month.
Asia CAT = JPY. A hot rip through 160 at Tokyo is a VETO candidate for NQ longs. (Also tracking ZN through the week.) Plan: relock JPY at 18:00, then at Tokyo open, then again if BOJ/MOF reacts between 1–3am Monday AM. this cadence will happen all week, may be a nothing burger, may trigger a carry unwind people will be talking about by Friday.
Jackson Hole fallout. Warsh didn't throw much water on Bessent — he sidestepped the buyback pushback rather than confronting it head-on, but leaned hawkish, flagging inflation as still-elevated and citing AI-driven growth potential. Post-speech, Fed funds futures moved to ~56% odds of a 25bp September hike. This week's overnights will be reaction-function all the way, IMHO. Don't forget China will be deciding what they want to do too. We called out that he didn't want to have the FED on the hook for the market, but unlike most retail and Fintwit folks, His job is to drive the Consensus bus and work his mandates. He loses credibility if he gets punked by the bond market. Watch that over the next 6 weeks.
Oil / war backdrop. Crude eased into the weekend — Brent under $88 (down >7% on the week), WTI near $82-83 — on Hormuz-corridor de-escalation optimism (Iran-Oman revenue-sharing agreement easing supply fears), even as fresh Russian strikes hit Ukraine's Danube grain-export corridor overnight Friday into Saturday. Don't assume the geopolitical premium is fully gone from the tape — diesel remains historically tight/expensive even as crude itself has calmed. Venezuela needs to be a strategic ally IMHO. Too much of Fintwit ignores the rest of the world.
Week Ahead (Mon Aug 31 – Fri Sept 4) — the big one is Friday.
Mon 8/31: Light calendar — Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index. No major earnings.
Tue 9/1: July JOLTS Job Openings, August ISM Manufacturing PMI. Earnings: Medtronic, NIO (AM); Palo Alto Networks, Dell, GitLab, MongoDB (PM).
Wed 9/2: August ADP Private Employment (NFP preview signal). Earnings: Broadcom (PM — watch for the $16B AI semi revenue guide), Snowflake, HPE, NetApp.
Thu 9/3: August ISM Services PMI, Q2 productivity/unit labor cost revisions. Earnings: Lululemon (AM); Zscaler, Samsara, Guidewire (PM).
Fri 9/4 — NFP day: August Nonfarm Payrolls, unemployment rate, participation rate, average hourly earnings. This is the last jobs report before the Sept 15–16 FOMC meeting, so it's the single biggest catalyst of the week. Context: July payrolls unexpectedly fell -23K (huge miss), May/June were revised down a combined -103K, unemployment ticked down to 4.1% but participation also dropped to 61.4%. A rebound eases labor-cooling fears; another weak print reinforces cut-side pressure — but final Fed pricing still has to net against Warsh's hawkish inflation tone from Jackson Hole. That tension (weak jobs vs. sticky inflation) is exactly the kind of setup that can whipsaw USDJPY and NQ intraday.
You Gals and Guys share great insight and help each other all the time - this rocks -share what you see and be careful trusting ai without triangulating it against some real world braincells - I think we have readers in every time zone and in more than a few discords — the reach helps us all track it. Hope this helps. Never Financial advice, just opinions - I learn something new every day, if I have it wrong, let me know! Cheers -Binky