Japan Raises Rates Tonight. Here's What It Means for Your Money.

The full playbook by Sensei: every scenario, every number, and exactly what to watch as it lands.

Tonight, while most of the US sleeps, Japan is going to set its highest interest rate in 31 years. The decision lands around 11pm to 1am Eastern, which is Tuesday lunchtime in Tokyo.

The question everyone’s asking this week is the same one: is this a repeat of August 2024? Back then a surprise hike from the Bank of Japan helped set off a global sell-off. The Nikkei had its worst day since 1987, down 12.4%. Bitcoin fell about 25% in two days.

Let me say the reassuring part up front. A repeat is not my base case. That 2024 crash was frightening mostly because it was a surprise. This time the hike is expected: 94% of economists and around 97% of market pricing already see it coming. The number is not the story. The tone is.

There’s a twist that makes tonight genuinely unusual. Governor Ueda is in hospital and will miss the meeting, the first time a sitting BOJ governor has done that since 1998. His deputy speaks instead. And a deal to end the US-Iran war has just landed, sending oil lower and quietly easing one of the main reasons for this hike.

As a free subscriber, today’s full playbook isn’t accessible to you, and tonight is exactly the night you’d want it.

It’s a document you can download and keep, packed with charts and infographics that make a complicated event simple. New trader or seasoned one, you’ll walk into tonight understanding it better than the people reacting to the headline.

Inside:

• The three ways tonight can go, with my odds on each, and the one that does the damage

• The single line on the yen that separates a calm night from a messy one

• Who gets hit first if it unwinds, and what tends to hold up or even gain

• How the carry trade actually works, in plain English

• Why this is not a repeat of 2024, and the one caveat I won’t pretend away

• What cheaper oil from the Iran deal does to the Fed on Wednesday

Why read me on this and not the noise. I called the inflation peak after May’s hot CPI and said it was an oil story. I flagged local bottoms in Bitcoin near 59,000, XRP near 1.05, gold near 4,000 and silver near 60, and bought. All four bounced. The receipts are in the archive, not in hindsight.

The catch is the clock. This is useful tonight or it isn’t useful at all. I’ve put a discount on the annual plan for this one, and the offer ends tonight when the decision lands.

If you upgrade today you’ll get 25% off and instant access to all the perks not just this playbook.

Here’s everything you get:

• Daily newsletter and market briefing

• Trade setups at key levels

• The full chart analysis course (Why 95% Lose and How to Be in the 5%)

• Three private TradingView indicators: Deep Trend, Momentum Band and Trigger Alert

• The £5,000 Portfolio Challenge

• Macro event cheat sheets for CPI, PCE, PPI, NFP and FOMC

• The Net Worth Tracker app

• Weekly XRP newsletter

• Weekly events calendar

• Private DMs with me

• Extra Discord channels and chart events

There are a few more perks on top of that too. With the discount it works out to around 50 cents a day.

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