Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving money.
The dollar's relentless climb is reviving a familiar anxiety in currency markets — the yen carry trade. When the dollar strengthens and the yen stays pinned near historic lows, leveraged investors borrow cheap yen to fund higher-yielding assets abroad. Last August showed exactly how violently that unwinds when sentiment shifts, and traders are watching that pressure build again.
Shifting to energy, crude oil has now fully retreated to pre-conflict levels, erasing the war premium that spiked prices when tensions with Iran escalated. But don't mistake that price signal for calm — shipping routes remain disrupted, supply chains haven't normalized, and demand forecasts are murky. The headline number is misleading relative to the underlying market structure.
And in soft commodities, arabica coffee pulled back sharply from four-and-three-quarter-month highs, with profit-taking and long liquidation driving the reversal. Robusta held modest gains, keeping the complex mixed. Cocoa saw similar pre-weekend pressure, with London contracts leading losses as traders squared positions ahead of the three-day holiday closure of US markets on Friday.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
