Author: Sophia Cruz

Sophia is an experienced writer, reporter and newsdesk member, mostly on the financial sectors. For the past 5 years Sophia has covered a wide variety of topics such as the financial markets, economics, technology, fin-tech and trading. Sophia has been a part of the FX Leaders team since 2017 and works on producing valuable content and information for traders of all levels of experience.

Oracle Pops 6% on TikTok Deal as Bitcoin Climbs Back Above $88K

Posted on by Sophia Cruz

Oracle jumped over 6% in premarket Friday, hitting around $190 after TikTok signed binding agreements for a new U.S. joint venture with Oracle taking a lead role. The deal calmed investor nerves about AI valuations after a shaky macro week.

Risk sentiment improved across the board. Bitcoin pushed back above $88,000. Nasdaq-100 futures gained about 0.5%. AI mining stocks also caught a bid, riding the wave of optimism around Oracle’s expanded role in data infrastructure.

TikTok inked the deal Wednesday with Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX forming the consortium. Expected close date is January 22, according to an internal memo from CEO Shou Zi Chew. ByteDance remains involved but the U.S. operations will operate independently under American control.

Here’s how it works. The U.S. joint venture handles all data for American users. Oracle oversees the algorithm domestically. Content moderation decisions get made by the new U.S. entity. ByteDance still owns the underlying algorithm technology but American auditors have oversight. The algorithm gets retrained using only U.S. user data.

For Oracle, this cements its position as a critical AI cloud and data security provider. Larry Ellison’s company was already winning big in the AI infrastructure race. This deal adds another high-profile client with massive data processing needs and potentially hundreds of millions of American users.

The crypto market took the Oracle news as a positive macro signal. When major tech deals go through and AI stocks rally, risk appetite typically follows. Bitcoin spent most of the week stuck around $86,000. Oracle’s rally gave people reason to buy, pushing BTC back over $88,000.

AI mining stocks rose too. These outfits run data centers doing both crypto mining and AI compute work. Oracle going up meant more demand for infrastructure, which helps miners running dual-purpose facilities.

TikTok’s been stuck in regulatory hell forever. Congress passed legislation forcing a sale or ban back in 2024 under Biden. Trump extended the deadline multiple times through executive orders after taking office. TikTok actually went dark briefly in January 2025 before Trump issued another order keeping it running while negotiations continued.

MGX, the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund in the consortium, has been aggressively investing in AI infrastructure. They’re involved with BlackRock and Microsoft on data centers, partnered with Oracle and SoftBank on the Stargate Project, and even dropped $2 billion into Binance earlier this year using Trump’s family cryptocurrency USD1.

The deal structure addresses national security concerns that drove the forced sale. Chinese law gives Beijing access to data held by private companies. Moving U.S. operations under American control with Oracle handling security theoretically solves that problem, at least on paper.

Markets had been worried about an AI valuation bubble after several weeks of volatility. Oracle getting this deal done and reacting positively suggests investors still see growth ahead for infrastructure providers. That optimism spilled over into crypto and other risk assets Friday morning.

Can Bitcoin stay above $88,000? That takes more than one good tech deal. Fed’s still hawkish, macro picture’s messy, crypto has its own issues. For today though, the TikTok news gave bulls an excuse to buy after getting beat up lately.

South Korea Scrambles to Stop Won’s Slide with Emergency Measures

Posted on by Sophia Cruz

South Korean officials rolled out emergency forex measures Thursday after the won hit eight-month lows. The package targets what authorities are calling structural dollar shortages that have been hammering the currency.

The won closed at 1,476 per dollar earlier this week, the weakest it’s been since April. Instead of just intervening in markets directly, Seoul’s going after the underlying regulations they say are choking dollar supply.

A Finance Ministry official explained the shift. Back when Korea owed money to the world, the priority was keeping dollars out to limit external debt. Now? Korean investors are pouring money overseas, creating permanent dollar outflows. The old rules blocking inflows don’t make sense anymore.

The biggest move suspends stress tests for banks’ foreign currency holdings through June. These tests force banks to stockpile extra dollars in case markets blow up. Without that requirement, banks can release some of those dollars into circulation.

“Conservative domestic financial institutions, including banks, tend to hold far more foreign currency than required by supervisory standards,” the official said. Suspending the stress tests should free up the most liquidity among all the measures.

Seoul’s also raising caps on banks’ currency forward positions. That gives lenders more room to manage foreign currency exposure. Foreign bank subsidiaries like Standard Chartered Korea and Citibank Korea get an even bigger boost. Their cap jumps from 75% to 200%, letting them bring way more offshore dollars into Korea.

Another change loosens rules on foreign currency loans for domestic use. Exporters could already borrow dollars for facility investments after last year’s won drop. Now they can use foreign currency loans for working capital too, meaning everyday operational expenses.

The government’s targeting equity outflows as well. Foreign money has been leaving Korean stocks, putting downward pressure on the won. New measures aim to pull capital back by clarifying that foreign-listed firms count as professional investors and promoting integrated accounts for foreign money.

Presidential chief of staff Kim Yong-beom called an emergency meeting Thursday with reps from seven major conglomerates: Samsung, SK, Hyundai Motor, LG, Lotte, Hanwha, and HD Hyundai. The presidential office didn’t release details, but the focus was clearly on getting these companies to help stabilize markets.

Companies hoarding dollar earnings instead of converting them to won has been blamed for part of the currency’s weakness. Authorities have been pushing firms to step up for weeks now.

The timing’s rough. Political chaos in Seoul has investors nervous. The acting president situation isn’t helping confidence. Neither are concerns about Korean economic growth slowing down while debt keeps climbing.

Currency interventions can only do so much. If money keeps flowing out because investors don’t want Korean assets, no amount of regulatory tweaking fixes that. These measures buy time, but they don’t solve the confidence problem.

 

Seoul’s betting that easing restrictions will get more dollars circulating and take pressure off the won. Whether it works depends on whether the structural outflows they’re worried about actually slow down or accelerate from here.

DTCC Picks Canton Network for Treasury Tokenization Push

Posted on by Sophia Cruz

DTCC went with Canton Network Tuesday for its tokenization plans. The Wall Street clearing giant will mint some US Treasury securities on Canton’s privacy-focused blockchain, marking a huge step for institutional adoption.

This comes right after the SEC gave DTCC a no-action letter letting them tokenize real-world assets that DTC holds in custody. That regulatory clearance was the green light DTCC needed to actually move forward.

DTCC’s also joining the Canton Foundation as co-chair alongside Euroclear. Two massive market infrastructure players steering a blockchain network together sends a signal about where traditional finance thinks this tech is headed.

Yuval Rooz from Digital Asset, which built Canton, said DTCC’s involvement “accelerates industry adoption” and creates a base for new liquidity products and operational improvements. Standard corporate speak, but coming from the entity that processes over $2 quadrillion in securities annually, it carries weight.

Canton’s pitch is privacy. Most public blockchains expose transaction data to everyone. That’s a nonstarter for institutional finance where confidentiality matters for competitive and regulatory reasons. Canton solves this with a permissioned structure where participants control who sees what.

The network already ran multiple pilots with DTCC. Last one involved 26 organizations doing 100-plus transactions using tokenized Treasury bonds. They tested creating digital twins of real assets, using them as collateral for margin calls, recalling assets, and handling closeout scenarios. Everything worked.

What makes Canton interesting is the interoperability angle. It connects multiple sovereign blockchains while keeping them separate. So JPMorgan can run its own chain, Goldman runs theirs, but they can still transact atomically across chains when needed. Privacy stays intact but you get the network effects.

DTCC’s no-action letter runs for three years, basically a pilot program at scale. They can mint tokenized versions of select equities, ETFs, and government Treasuries on approved blockchains. The pilot kicks off second half of 2026.

There’s a failsafe structure built in. DTC controls a root wallet that can reverse transactions if something goes wrong. That addresses the “what if there’s a mistake” concern that keeps compliance teams up at night. Blockchain purists hate that kind of centralized control, but institutional finance demands it.

The timing matters. Markets have spent years talking about tokenization without much happening in regulated US markets. Now with the SEC backing off its aggressive enforcement stance and actually permitting experimentation, infrastructure players like DTCC are making moves.

Other players are watching closely. If DTCC successfully demonstrates that tokenized settlement works at scale without breaking anything, expect a rush of similar initiatives. The opposite is also true. If this pilot hits technical or regulatory problems, it could slow everything down.

Settlement times are the big prize here. Current T+1 settlement means trades clear the next business day. Tokenized systems could theoretically settle in minutes or seconds. That frees up capital, reduces counterparty risk, and opens 24/7 trading possibilities.

Canton already proved the weekend trading concept. Earlier this year, participants executed real-time on-chain repo transactions using tokenized Treasuries and USDC on a Saturday. That’s impossible in traditional markets where settlement infrastructure shuts down outside business hours.

Do Kwon Gets 15 Years for Terra Fraud That Wiped Out $40 Billion

Posted on by Sophia Cruz

Do Kwon got hit with a 15-year prison sentence Thursday for orchestrating what Judge Paul Engelmayer called an “epic fraud.” The Terraform Labs co-founder’s stablecoin scheme erased roughly $40 billion in value over three days back in May 2022.

The sentence landed higher than what prosecutors wanted (12 years) and way above what Kwon’s lawyers asked for (5 years). Engelmayer didn’t hold back, saying there are few frauds in federal prosecution history that caused this much damage. He called Kwon’s conduct during TerraUSD’s final collapse “despicable.”

Back in August, Kwon cut a deal. Took a plea on conspiracy and wire fraud. Started with nine charges but he knocked it down. At 34, Stanford educated, he stood up in court and said yeah, he scammed people who trusted TerraUSD. The coin was marketed as stable, always worth a dollar.

So here’s how the con worked. May 2021 rolls around and TerraUSD starts slipping under a dollar. Kwon goes on Twitter, tells everyone there’s this algorithm, “Terra Protocol,” handles it automatically. Lies through his teeth. What he actually did? Paid some trading shop quietly to dump money into tokens, artificially pump the price. Nobody knew.

Twelve months later, everything imploded. TerraUSD crashed below a dollar, stayed there. Luna went with it. Retail investors? Destroyed. The damage kept spreading too, hit FTX eventually, other exchanges.

Listening to victims testify took all day and it was painful. This one guy stood up, said his marriage ended over it, his boys can’t go to university now, he moved back to Croatia living with mom and dad. Lost it all. Someone else talked about getting relatives involved, getting charities to put money in. Watched it all burn.

Stanislav Trofimchuk put in $190,000 with his family. Ended up with $13,000. Told the judge “17 years of our life, gone.” Called it “two weeks of sheer terror” when everything collapsed. Chauncey St. John mentioned nonprofits dropping $2 million plus. Some church lost around $900,000.

Over 300 people wrote letters. Prosecutors read chunks of them out loud. College kid trying to graduate lost $11,400, wrote about how scary it was seeing money just vanish in hours. Their letter said “What happened was not an accident. It was not a market event. It was deception.”

Kwon stood up after that, said sorry. Told the court he thinks about it constantly, what he should’ve changed, different decisions. Judge figured maybe a million people got hurt total.

Then there’s the running. Kwon bolted to Serbia after things fell apart. Hopped to Montenegro with forged documents. Tried making it to Dubai but got arrested. Judge brought that up. Didn’t do him any favors.

Deal he signed says minimum half the sentence before requesting transfer back to South Korea. More criminal cases waiting there. Judge asked pointed questions about what stops South Korea from releasing him early once he’s back on their soil.

Prosecutors pointed out Terra wiped out more money than SBF at FTX, more than OneCoin. Bankman-Fried’s doing 25 years right now. Mashinsky from Celsius got 12. Kwon landed at 15, somewhere in the middle of crypto’s Hall of Shame.

Gemini Gets Green Light for US Prediction Markets After Five-Year Wait

Posted on by Sophia Cruz

Gemini just cleared a major regulatory hurdle. The CFTC approved the exchange’s affiliate, Gemini Titan, to operate as a Designated Contract Market on Wednesday, ending a licensing process that started back in March 2020.

The approval lets Gemini offer prediction markets to US customers. Basically yes-or-no bets on actual events. Can Bitcoin reach $200,000 before 2026? Does Elon pay that EU fine or not? Users can trade these contracts through Gemini’s web platform using existing USD balances, with mobile access coming later.

Tyler Winklevoss credited the Trump administration for what he called ending the “war on crypto” under Biden. His brother Cameron went further, saying prediction markets could grow bigger than traditional capital markets and praising Acting CFTC Chair Caroline Pham for taking a pro-business stance.

The political angle matters here. The Winklevoss twins, both Trump donors, reportedly helped tank Brian Quintenz’s nomination for CFTC chair. Quintenz happens to be a Kalshi director and shareholder. After lobbying from the brothers, the White House pulled his nomination and went with Michael Selig instead.

Gemini now joins Kalshi as a CFTC-regulated prediction market. Polymarket got clearance last month to return to US operations after getting kicked offshore in 2022 with a $1.4 million fine. The space is heating up fast. Analysts estimate the prediction market industry could hit $95 billion by 2035, growing at 46% annually.

Gemini’s plans go beyond simple event contracts. The company wants to explore crypto futures, options, and perpetual contracts for US customers. Perps dominate global crypto derivatives trading but remain restricted domestically. Getting approval for those would be huge for US traders who currently use offshore exchanges.

The stock liked the news. Gemini shares jumped 13.7% in after-hours trading to $12.92, though they’re still down 70% from the IPO price. That tells you how rough things have been for publicly traded crypto companies lately.

Some states aren’t playing along. Connecticut recently ordered Robinhood, Crypto.com, and Kalshi to stop offering event contracts, calling them unlicensed sports betting. Massachusetts sued Kalshi over the same issue. Federal approval doesn’t solve the state-level gambling law problems.

Gemini sees this as building toward a “one-stop financial super app.” The exchange already handles trading, custody, staking, and tokenization. Adding prediction markets and potentially derivatives creates more reasons for users to park assets there instead of spreading them across multiple platforms.

The five-year wait reflects how slowly crypto regulation moves in the US. Gemini applied when the regulatory environment was completely different. With Trump in office and new people running the CFTC, the approval went through. Whether this keeps going depends entirely on politics over the next couple years.

Bitcoin Holds $92K as Traders Await Fed Rate Decision Amid Volatility Warnings

Posted on by Sophia Cruz

Bitcoin’s sitting at $92,300 going into Wednesday’s Fed meeting. Everyone expects a 25 basis point rate cut, which typically helps risk assets. Still, traders are preparing for wild price action no matter what happens.

The FedWatch tool on CME shows 89% chance of a quarter-point cut. Bitcoin? It’s been stuck between $88,000 and $94,500 for a week now. Whichever way it breaks out of that range will likely tell you where prices head next.

Ethereum’s having a better day than Bitcoin, up 7%. Part of that comes from the Fusaka upgrade last week getting people interested in ETH again. The rest of the altcoin market? Not so much. CoinMarketCap’s altcoin season index is at 16 out of 100, close to the lowest it’s been this cycle.

Rate announcements tend to shake things up. A 25 basis point cut is already priced in, but there’s a decent chance people sell the news anyway. That would leave anyone chasing longs at these prices stuck. Volmex shows one-day Bitcoin implied volatility jumped to 67% from 20%, though that only means roughly a 3.5% move in either direction over 24 hours.

Over on Deribit, puts cost more than calls for both Bitcoin and Ethereum. ETH traders have been using strangles and straddles in the last day, betting on big swings without picking a direction. Bitcoin folks went with risk reversals instead.

Open interest has climbed across major coins. Ethereum futures open interest jumped 8%, hitting 12.4 million ETH. That’s the most since early December. Cardano spiked to 1.80 billion ADA for a moment, matching its October peak.

Some tokens show seriously negative funding rates. BCH, XMR, and WLFI all have heavy short positioning. Meanwhile on the CME, ether futures open interest crossed back above 2 million ETH. Bitcoin positioning stays at multi-month lows.

What Powell says matters more than the cut itself. If he signals more cuts are coming in 2026, prices could stay strong. Sound too cautious even while cutting? Bitcoin might head back toward $88,000.

Bitcoin whales have been buying. Over 403,000 BTC left exchanges this week, taking supply off the table. When demand comes back, that kind of supply squeeze can push prices harder.

The Coinbase premium flipped positive recently, showing U.S. buyers are back. Bitcoin’s price gains have also beaten the increase in open interest, which suggests spot buying is driving this move rather than leveraged speculation.

HashKey Opens Hong Kong IPO Books, Eyes $215 Million Raise

Posted on by Sophia Cruz

HashKey Holdings opened subscriptions Tuesday for what could be Hong Kong’s first publicly traded crypto exchange. The company is offering 240.6 million shares at HK$5.95 to HK$6.95 each, aiming to raise up to HK$1.67 billion, or about $215 million.

Books stay open through Friday. Trading starts December 17, assuming everything goes smoothly. At the top of the price range, HashKey would debut with a valuation around HK$19 billion.

The timing is interesting. Hong Kong has been pushing hard to become a regulated crypto hub since launching its virtual asset framework in 2022. HashKey was one of the first exchanges to get licensed under that regime. Now it’s testing whether investors actually want exposure to a regulated Asian crypto exchange, especially given how rough markets have been lately.

Major institutional players are backing the deal. UBS Asset Management, Fidelity International, and Infini Capital committed a combined $75 million as cornerstone investors with six-month lockups. That signals at least some confidence from traditional finance that Hong Kong’s regulated approach has legs.

HashKey’s business stretches beyond just running an exchange. The company operates trading, custody, staking, and tokenization services. It also runs HashKey Chain, a layer-2 network focused on real-world assets, stablecoins, and institutional applications. According to the prospectus, HashKey controls over 75% of Hong Kong’s onshore digital asset trading volume.

The financials show rapid growth but also serious losses. Revenue jumped from HK$129 million in 2022 to HK$721 million in 2024 as trading volumes picked up. First half 2025 brought in another HK$284 million. But cumulative losses over the past three years exceeded HK$2.3 billion. The company narrowed its H1 2025 loss by more than a third versus the prior year through cost controls, but it’s still deeply in the red.

Assets under management tell a more positive story. HashKey reported HK$7.8 billion ($998 million) in AUM since inception, HK$29 billion ($3.71 billion) in staking assets, and HK$1.7 billion ($218 million) in real-world asset value. That makes it the largest staking provider in Asia and eighth globally.

The IPO proceeds are earmarked for expansion. About 40% goes toward product innovation and infrastructure, including derivatives, yield products, and custody upgrades. Another 40% targets market expansion and ecosystem partnerships. The remaining 20% covers operations, risk management, and general corporate needs.

JPMorgan and Guotai Junan are joint sponsors, which adds some establishment credibility to the deal. But there’s a lot riding on this. Hong Kong has licensed 11 exchanges under its new framework but hasn’t attracted global giants like Binance or Coinbase yet. The city is competing with Singapore, Dubai, and others for crypto firms, and results have been mixed.

HashKey positions itself as the beneficiary of a trend toward regulated, onshore venues as institutions rotate away from offshore exchanges with looser oversight. Whether that thesis holds depends on whether traditional finance really does move into crypto through licensed channels, or if the bulk of activity stays offshore where regulations are lighter.

Bonds Beat Bitcoin This Year While Traders Navigate Volatility

Posted on by Sophia Cruz

Here’s an uncomfortable truth for crypto believers: boring government bonds have crushed Bitcoin in 2025. BTC is down 7% year-to-date. The U.S. 10-year Treasury? Up 2.5%.

That means anyone who put their money in fixed income instead of crypto made the right call, despite all those corporate BTC purchases by digital asset treasuries. Not what the maximalists want to hear.

The bigger issue is what the 10-year’s strength tells you about market sentiment. When a traditional safe haven outperforms like this, it’s usually bad news for riskier stuff like stocks and crypto. We talked about this last week: institutional money flowing out of spot bitcoin ETFs could be signaling trouble ahead on the macro front.

Things could shift before year-end, sure. If the Fed cuts rates by 25 basis points in December and sounds dovish about it, the Dollar Index might drop and give risk assets some breathing room. But right now? The DXY looks like it’s setting up camp above its 200-day moving average, ignoring all the dovish Fed speculation.

Options activity isn’t helping anyone figure out where prices go next. Earlier this week, someone bought heavy protection at the $80,000 put strike. Then a massive block trade showed up betting Bitcoin could break back above $100,000 by year-end. Tuesday brought a $220,000 call purchase that looked bullish until you noticed the buyer also grabbed $40,000 calls. Greeks.Live told CoinDesk that’s a volatility play, not a directional bet.

Translation: Nobody knows what’s happening, so they’re betting on big moves in either direction.

The near-term setup feels messy. Prices are choppy, macro signals are mixed, and options traders are hedging both ways. Not exactly the environment where you want to take big swings.

There is one bright spot that hasn’t gotten much attention. New U.S. banking rules just dropped capital requirements for low-risk assets like Treasuries. Banks get more room to lend. Bond dealers can jump in easier when markets get shaky. If volatility spikes, that might help keep things from falling apart.

For now though, the scorecard is clear. Bonds won 2025. Crypto didn’t. And until something changes with Fed policy or the dollar weakens, that dynamic probably sticks around.

Bitcoin Bounces Back as Altcoins Stage Sharp Rally

Posted on by Sophia Cruz

Bitcoin climbed 1.8% Tuesday, hitting $87,250 and shaking off the doom and gloom that’s been hanging over crypto since the weekend. The bounce came after the Nasdaq posted its biggest daily gain since May, which helped lift risk appetite across the board.

Altcoins did even better. SUI gained over 11%. ENA, BONK, and CC all rose more than 8%. Ethereum went up 3.3%, which doesn’t sound like much but felt significant given how badly it’s been beaten down over the past month. Some traders think this could be where the market stops falling. Maybe.

Privacy coins got left behind. Zcash fell 6.6%. Dash stayed negative too. The rally clearly didn’t reach every corner of crypto.

Bitcoin getting back above $87,000 is worth noting. It shows the coin is shaking off some of the bearish talk that built up over the weekend when people were calling for lower prices. The relative strength in BTC opened the door for smaller tokens to run harder as investors felt comfortable taking on more speculative positions.

Options activity tells part of the story. BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF saw fresh demand for upside calls Monday, though the overall options market still leans toward protective puts. That split suggests traders are hedging both directions while prices bounce around.

In futures, XRP is leading the way among major coins. Open interest jumped 12% to 1.84 billion XRP, the highest level since mid-October. Meanwhile, open interest in Bitcoin perpetual futures on major exchanges keeps dropping, which indicates low participation in this price bounce. Funding rates in BTC perps actually flipped negative, meaning there’s a net bias toward short positions for the first time in over five weeks.

The longer-term picture hasn’t changed much. Charts still show a series of lower highs and lower lows, classic downtrend territory. Ethereum would need to rally and hold around $3,500 before anyone could argue it’s putting in a bottom. Right now it’s not there.

Tuesday’s altcoin action felt like the market coming back to life after a rough stretch. Tokens like SUI and ENA rising over 11% following a week of declining prices gave some traders hope that the worst might be over. But one day of gains doesn’t flip a trend.

The equities rally helped. Stocks had a strong day, and when that happens, crypto tends to follow. Tuesday played out exactly like that. Bitcoin and the major alts got bought as equities rallied.

Still, caution dominates. Metaplanet tapped its $500 million bitcoin-backed credit facility for another $130 million loan as part of its expanding BTC-focused funding strategy. Total borrowing under that facility now sits at $230 million, backed by 30,823 BTC as collateral. That kind of leveraged play works great when prices rise but gets ugly fast if things reverse.

Asian Currencies Hold Steady as Markets Wait on Fed Clarity

Posted on by Sophia Cruz

Asian currencies barely moved Friday as traders tried to make sense of mixed U.S. jobs data that did nothing to clear up what the Fed might do in December. The dollar stayed flat too, with both sides waiting for better clues.

Japan had everyone’s attention Friday. Japan released a pile of numbers Friday. Inflation, factory data, trade stats, all at once. People spent hours going through everything, wondering what it means for the Bank of Japan’s next move.

Dollar index futures? Down 0.1% when Friday opened. Asian currencies? Pretty much the same story. The Chinese yuan dipped slightly onshore, stayed quiet offshore. South Korea’s won dropped 0.3%. Singapore’s dollar went nowhere. India’s rupee edged down a touch while the Aussie dollar gained a bit.

Thursday’s U.S. jobs report just muddied the waters. Payrolls added 119,000 jobs, better than what analysts were expecting. But then unemployment went up to 4.4%. And wages? Barely moved. Hourly earnings increased, but just barely.

So what does that tell you about a December rate cut? Not much, apparently. MUFG analysts noted the stronger payrolls number backs up Fed Chair Powell’s recent hawkish comments that a December cut isn’t a done deal. The problem is the other parts of the report point different directions.

Japan’s data gave markets more to chew on. October inflation came in at 3%, way over the BOJ’s 2% goal. There’s also a core measure that takes out food and energy costs, and that one strengthened too. Why does that matter? Because it shows price pressures aren’t just surface level.

That keeps the heat on the Bank of Japan to consider tightening policy. But they’ve been clear they want to see wage growth pick up first and domestic demand stabilize before they make any real moves. Inflation alone isn’t enough to force their hand.

The trade balance showed a smaller October deficit than expected. Exports ticked up slightly from last year. Imports rose a little. The economy’s not booming, but it’s not collapsing either.

Manufacturing stayed in contraction territory. November’s PMI reading improved versus October but stayed under 50. Factories have been stuck like this for months.

The yen fell 0.2% Friday after jumping to its highest level in 10 months the day before. Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama made the usual noises about intervening if currency moves get too wild. It’s what Japanese officials always say when they want traders to know someone’s paying attention.

Where does all this leave things? Currency markets are stuck in neutral waiting for clearer signals. The Fed isn’t giving anyone confidence about December. Japan’s data is mixed enough that the BOJ can justify sitting tight. Until something breaks one way or the other, expect more of this sideways drift.