LIUUR

U.S. Treasury yields and oil prices both edged lower. Brent fell below 100, while WTI is just one step away from short-side profits; Brent still needs to hold on a little longer.
Why did oil prices fall? Oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz have returned to around 80% of prewar levels. Although the U.S. is providing escorts, Iran still attacks vessels from time to time, keeping transportation costs from falling, so oil prices have not dropped too sharply. The Nasdaq hit another new high, but the rally was mainly driven by large tech stocks, while most stocks remained barely alive. Put si

After a week, gold has finally returned yet again to around the 4100 low reached at the beginning of the month.
As I said before, the logic is that gold’s biggest enemy right now is not whether the war escalates, but 5%+ U.S. Treasury yields and a strong-dollar policy! In the eyes of the United States, gold is very important, but for now, it cannot be more important than the dollar. So gold remains under continuous pressure and is struggling to rise!
In the short term, if 4100 holds, gold still has a chance to continue forming a bottom. Only by reclaiming the 4230–4250 range can the outlook tu

Breaking: Someone bought $15,000–$20,000 worth of $GOLD call options in December—and gold is currently hovering around $4,100.
This began after gold surged to $5,600 in January, then fell 11% within a day. As gold continued to decline, the position kept expanding.
But the key point the viral posts didn’t tell you is that this is a call spread strategy. The maximum payout is capped at $20,000.
If 11,000 spreads were purchased, the original cost would be approximately $3.3 million. Potential return? $5.5 billion.
This is lottery-style math—not so-called “insider information.”
Aakash Doshi of Sta

Finance Minister Lan Fo'an published an article in Qiushi, proposing a fairly key direction for tax system adjustments:
The tax collection stage for consumption tax should be moved downstream and gradually delegated to local governments. The article also mentioned reform of local surtaxes.
This is actually an old topic, but raising it at this point sends a fairly clear signal.
What does moving consumption tax downstream mean? Simply put, collection would shift from the production stage to the retail or wholesale stage. Wherever the seller serving consumers is located, that locality would colle

Aave is getting serious this time! They have proposed handing control over the management of the brand and intellectual property directly to the DAO community!
From now on, the Aave brand will be decided by votes from all token-holding community members!
Although the trademarks and code are still temporarily held by the team, this is only the first transitional step.
What happens in the future will be entirely up to community votes.
This means Aave is shifting from company-led to community-led governance—that is the true spirit of decentralization!

Anthropic's potential November-December IPO could divert crypto liquidity to a certain extent. Founded in 2021 by siblings, this company is the developer of the Claude large language model. It was established by former OpenAI Vice President of Research Dario Amodei and his sibling after they left OpenAI in 2021, and focuses on the “AI safety” narrative. The company is registered as a PBC (public benefit corporation, a corporate structure that writes a social mission into its charter). Backed by Google and Amazon, two major financial backers, it is currently OpenAI’s strongest competitor.
The 1

There has been no effective information on the US-Iran situation so far. Iran confirmed yesterday that it had received feedback from the US, and the two sides have now reached the stage of weighing the pros and cons.
As for the US-Iran situation, I said before that, for both sides, the dovish and hardline factions are key points that the senior leadership needs to balance. Resuming negotiations is easy; what is more difficult is finding a reason to portray oneself as the victor.
The media is currently reporting that, at the beginning of this week, while the US and Iran were communicating in th

As soon as the price index was released, I knew gold would fall. Don’t be fooled by some U.S. stocks continuing to rally—it’s merely a smokescreen. PCE was entirely within the range of a few points below expectations, which was predictable because a new statistical method was used. Inflation stickiness remains stubborn, and Friday’s nonfarm payrolls data is basically certain to be bearish: the unemployment rate may decline, while the number of nonfarm jobs may still exceed expectations. The expansion in manufacturing makes that more or less clear. The economy cannot stop and may even be overhe

Gold plunged nearly 4% in early trading, approaching 4,100, only to violently engulf the move and break through 4,180 late in the session—a stunning deep V in a single day, leaving the bears across the internet slapped in the face.
U.S. Treasury yields surged to near 24-year highs, with the 30-year yield approaching 5.61%. Fed's Williams struck a clearly hawkish yet dovish tone, saying there could be one more rate hike this year but there was no need to act hastily. Gold should have broken down, but after falling below 4,100, there was never any real panic selling on volume, and funds rushed t

Gold fell below $4,200, Trump rejected Iran’s proposal, oil prices and Treasury yields pushed higher together, and expectations for an October rate hike heated up again—the triple pressure directly weighed on gold prices. Bears are now targeting $4,000 and even $3,800, but many institutions say the downside is limited—who’s just talking tough? At this level, shorting risks a rebound, while buying the dip risks catching a falling knife. Friends, which side are you on?

Iran slaps everyone in the face: The Strait of Hormuz wasn’t reopened, so oil prices fell for nothing?
On September 22, Iran’s Fars News Agency, citing sources, said Reuters’ and Kyodo News’ reports about the opening of the Strait of Hormuz were “unreliable and untrue.”
The market had previously been flooded with rumors: Iran had set a condition that it would reopen the strait within seven days if the US lifted its port blockade. After the news broke, oil prices fell for four consecutive sessions, with WTI dropping below $90 and Brent falling to around $94.
Iran has now directly denied it.
But

Bank of Japan raises rates to a 31-year high
To be honest, I think Japan’s rate hike this time is more worth examining than the “25 basis points” on the surface.
The Bank of Japan raised its policy rate from 1% to 1.25%, directly setting a 31-year high. For an economy that has long relied on “zero interest rates and negative interest rates” for support, it is now actually starting to step on the brakes proactively. This itself is a microcosm of changes in the global liquidity environment.
What’s more interesting is that—the rate hike happened, but the yen fell instead.
The reason is not compli

Trump returned to the White House overnight as alerts sounded at 10 embassies—last week he had just rejected Saudi Arabia’s request to send troops; this week, he is holding secret talks at Camp David on striking the Houthis.
The Houthis have taken control of Perim Island, the strategic center of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, choking the throat of global energy supplies. The Saudi crown prince twice asked the U.S. military to deploy troops, and was refused both times. Now, Trump has ended his vacation early, while U.S. embassies in 10 Middle Eastern countries simultaneously issued security warnings

Everyone is watching the Fed and U.S. Treasuries, but the real pricing power today lies with the Bank of Japan.
Japan will most likely raise rates by 25 bps to 1.25% today, and all the market noise is: “Rate hike = stronger yen = carry trade ends = bull market peaks.”
I take the completely opposite view: this rate hike is not the end, but the clearing of uncertainty and confirmation of a bull-market continuation.
First, let’s look at the interest-rate differential:
The U.S. benchmark rate is 3.75%-4%, while Japan’s rate will be 1.25% after the hike, leaving a spread of more than 2.5 percentage

Does the rebound in risk assets after the rate hike mean that rate hikes are no longer a threat? I think it is still too early to draw that conclusion.
This September rate hike had already been priced in by the market long ago. The rate hike probability had remained above 90% since last week, and the market basically began pricing it in ahead of time once the probability exceeded 80%. Therefore, after today's rate hike was officially implemented, short-term funds instead had some room to catch their breath. The market's focus will next shift from “whether to hike in September” to “when the nex

Early Thursday morning, the Federal Reserve announced a 25-basis-point rate hike, raising the benchmark interest rate to 3.75%-4.00%. This was the first rate hike since July 2023 and was in line with market expectations. The Federal Reserve had previously remained on hold for five consecutive meetings.
Full text of the policy statement
The Federal Open Market Committee approved the following statement by a vote of 12 in favor and 0 opposed:
To support the Federal Reserve's dual mandate, the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 3.75%—4%. T

#美联储加息是否已成定局 At 2 a.m., the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25 basis points as expected, but the market rose against the trend: BTC surged to $76,000, ETH broke above $2,400, and ZEC also rallied. Why did the market rise despite the rate hike? Because the rate hike itself was not frightening; the dot plot was—the median projection pointed to 4.1%, with 16 of the 19 officials expecting another hike in 2026, more hawkish than Goldman Sachs’ previous expectation of “only one hike.” Warsh said “fine-tuning” verbally, but the dot plot revealed that he could not suppress the hawkish camp.

The U.S. crypto bill failed to clear the Senate’s procedural hurdle on September 15, so the industry will have to wait again for the clear rules it has been hoping for.
Companies don’t know which set of rules they will have to do business under, making it even harder to spend confidently on expansion.
This time, it’s not “good news coming soon”—the progress bar is stuck. The bill’s failure doesn’t mean crypto is banned, but those who celebrated early really do need to put the champagne back.
#参议院推进CLARITY法案