Overnight, while the US slept

Risk stayed on the back foot into the weekend: Wall Street limped to the line on Friday — the S&P 500 essentially flat at 7,354 (−0.05%), the Dow off 45 points to 51,876 (−0.09%), and the Nasdaq down 0.24% to 25,297 for its fifth straight losing session as money kept rotating out of chip and big-tech names. A reported delay to the OpenAI listing added to the sour tech mood. This is a market nursing a hangover, not panicking — but the bid is gone.

Rates & DXY: The story under the surface is rates. New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's first meeting flipped the script — the updated "dot plot" (the Fed's own chart of where officials see rates heading) now points to a hike rather than a cut this year, with the median year-end call jumping to 3.8%. The 2-year Treasury yield (the bond most sensitive to Fed policy) sits around 4.18%, fresh 2026 highs, while the 10-year is near 4.45%. The result: the US Dollar Index (DXY — the dollar measured against a basket of major currencies) is around 100.6, its highest since May 2025. Higher-for-longer is firmly back in the driver's seat.

The dominant driver — a hawkish Fed plus a calmer Middle East: Two forces are pulling the same way. Warsh has made clear he won't be pressured into early cuts, and progress on a US–Iran peace framework has dragged oil back to pre-war levels. Brent fell to about $72.70 on Friday — roughly a 10% weekly drop and the lowest since February — as Gulf shipping reopened. Cheaper oil eases the inflation worry but also strips out the war-risk premium that markets had been paying up for.

Gold: trading 4,088.97 / 4,091.44. Day range 3,983 – 4,096; prior-day high/low 4,044 / 3,963. Here's the framework I apply: when a geopolitical shock is supply-side (think an oil spike from a blockade), it tends to push central banks hawkish, lift real rates — interest rates after stripping out inflation — and that's usually bearish gold. What we're seeing now is the unwind of that shock: oil is falling, the war premium is draining, and the Fed is hawkish anyway. By rights gold should be on the ropes — yet it bounced ~1.5% on Friday and is holding $4,090, a long way below January's record ~$5,595 but refusing to crack. My read: the structural buyers (central banks, long-term allocators) are still there on dips. So I treat $4,090 as a market in a holding pattern with a floor, not a falling knife.

Crypto: Bitcoin 59,624 (RSI M15 49, ATR $156); day 59,375 – 59,635, prior-day H/L 60,455 / 59,145. It has slipped back below the $60k line and looks heavy. Ether 1,569 (RSI M15 47, ATR $6); day 1,559 – 1,569, prior-day H/L 1,585 / 1,552. This is a market in a genuine bear phase — total crypto value is down roughly half from its peak, US Bitcoin ETFs have bled record outflows, and there's been high-profile selling. The hawkish Fed is salt in the wound. I'd respect the downtrend until it proves otherwise.

Key FX:

• EURUSD 1.1387 — RSI 44 (neutral, soft side), ATR ~4 pips. Day H/L 1.1390 / 1.1382, prior-day H/L 1.1434 / 1.1354. Sitting in the lower half of Friday's range; the euro can't get out of the dollar's shadow.
• GBPUSD 1.3198 — RSI 44, ATR ~6 pips. Holding 1.32 by its fingernails; same heavy tone as the euro.
• USDJPY 161.75 — RSI 56 (neutral), ATR ~3 pips. The yen stays soft with the rate gap this wide; nothing near intervention territory yet, but a level worth keeping half an eye on up here.
• AUDUSD 0.6889 — RSI 32 (oversold), ATR ~4 pips. Three-month lows. Broad dollar strength is steamrolling a decent local jobs picture. Oversold, so a bounce wouldn't surprise — but the trend is down.
• NZDUSD 0.5642 — RSI 48, ATR ~3 pips. Dragged along in the Aussie's wake.
• USDCHF 0.8102 — RSI 63, ATR ~3 pips. The dollar's even clawing back ground on the franc, which underlines how broad this USD move is.

Cross-asset snapshot:

Asset	Now	vs Prior Close	Vector
S&P 500	7,354	−0.05%	Risk-off / tired
US 10Y	4.45%	Rising	Hawkish
DXY	~100.6	Higher	USD strong
Gold	4,090	≈ flat (≈ +$46 vs prior-day high)	Capped but supported
Bitcoin	59,624	−$831 vs prior-day high	Weak
Brent	~$72.70	−10% on the week	Oil-supply / peace driven

Context: it's month- and quarter-end, so expect some rebalancing flows to nudge prices around the edges today, and a US holiday closes Wall Street on Friday — liquidity thins as the week goes on.

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