Five events in ten days. How I read the week.
PPI, CPI, the Clarity Act vote, the Fed and the Bank of Japan, all between 10 and 18 September. I don't guess the outcomes. I decide in advance what I do in each scenario. Here is the week, event by event, and the plan I trade it with.
Every now and then the calendar stacks up. This is one of those stretches: five decisions that can move markets, packed into ten days. PPI on Thursday, CPI on Friday, a Senate vote on the Clarity Act on Tuesday, the Fed on Wednesday, the Bank of Japan on Friday.
I made a carousel about it for Instagram. This is the longer version, with the reasoning I could not fit on a slide.
The cover slide from the carousel. The dates are the whole story.
Thursday 10 September: PPI
Producer prices. What factories and wholesalers pay before the product reaches the shelf. It is the first inflation test of the week and it sets the tone for the bigger number the day after.
A hot print says inflation is still alive upstream. A cool print lets the Fed breathe. On its own PPI rarely moves markets for long, but it changes how people position into Friday.
Friday 11 September: CPI, the big one
Consumer prices, the number everyone is waiting for. July came in at 3.4 percent year over year. The August print lands Friday at 08:30 New York time, 14:30 in Sweden.
How I read it: above 3.4 and a hike moves closer. Below 3.4 and a pause becomes the main track. Core inflation, without food and energy, carries the most weight, because that is what the Fed actually watches.
This is the number that decides how the Fed thinks the following week. Everything else is context.
Tuesday 15 September: the Clarity Act in the Senate
The Senate votes on whether to even take up the Clarity Act, the US bill that draws the line between the SEC and the CFTC on who regulates which digital assets. It is a procedural vote and it needs 60 votes.
If it passes, exchanges and companies finally get rules they can build on, and institutions get their excuse to step in. If it fails, the uncertainty stays for years and the rules keep being written by courts instead of by law. Given the midterm calendar, a no here probably parks the question until after the election.
For crypto this is the most important day of the ten.
Wednesday 16 September: the Fed
The rate decision, new projections, and Warsh's press conference. The market is pricing roughly a coin flip on a hike. By Wednesday the Fed knows more than it does today, because it will have seen both PPI and CPI.
What I watch: hike or pause, the tone in the press conference, and the projections for the rest of the year.
The pattern I have seen over and over: the decision itself moves the market for minutes. The tone moves it for weeks.
Friday 18 September: the Bank of Japan
Japan has had the cheapest borrowed money in the world for a long time. That is the foundation of the yen carry trade: borrow cheaply in yen, buy stocks and crypto with the money. It works until the rate in Tokyo rises.
If the BOJ turns more hawkish, the flow reverses. USD/JPY usually reacts first, then the rest of the world. We have seen how fast that can travel.
My plan for the week
I don't guess the outcomes. I decide in advance what I do in each scenario. That is the whole difference between trading a week like this and being traded by it.
Before the week starts:
- Smaller positions around the announcements.
- Stops in place, not in my head.
- No new trades in the last half hour before a number.
Five events, ten days, zero guesses. If you want to see how I handle the individual days, that is what the Instagram account is for this week.
As always: do your own research. This is how I read it, not advice.