Last week's triple central bank event is behind us, but it has left markets more complex, not less. The Federal Reserve raised rates to 3.75%-4.00% unanimously, the Bank of Japan followed with a 25 basis point hike to a 31-year high, and the Bank of England held. The net effect across the instruments we follow has been notable: USD/JPY has recovered toward 157 after the BoJ's surprise 7-2 dissent read as a signal that the pace of Japanese tightening will slow, and gold has staged its first weekly gain in four weeks as oil pulled back from its $106 peak toward the upper $90s.
This week's dominant theme is no longer what central banks will do. It is what the Trump-Xi summit on Wednesday 24 September will deliver. A summit that proceeds without a Taiwan flashpoint is dollar-negative and risk-positive across the board. A cancellation is a sharp jolt in the opposite direction. Against this backdrop, two instruments deserve particular attention from a directional perspective: EUR/USD, where CoT positioning at the 14th percentile short still contains meaningful short-covering fuel if the dollar weakens, and USD/JPY, where the most crowded long position in 52 weeks of data is already unwinding and the structural upside target sits near the 158-159 zone.
WTI holds above $93 as its base case floor, gold eyes the $4,430 resistance as the week's pivotal level, and ten Federal Reserve speaker appearances will calibrate November hike odds from the current 60% probability that is anchoring almost every cross-asset decision made this week. The full briefing gives you the precise levels, the CoT analysis, the event-by-event calendar with UK release times, and the early warning signals that tell you when the week's narrative is changing before the price has finished moving. All of that detail is what separates informed decisions from reactive ones.