The Dollar Index trades near 99.08 into the meeting that defines the week. What makes Wednesday unusual is not the hike, which is largely priced, but the projections released alongside it. Consensus expects the dots at 3.8% this year, 3.6% next, 3.4% the year after and 3.1% both in the third year and over the longer run.

The case was built over a fortnight rather than in a single release. Payrolls removed the labour market as an obstacle and upward revisions turned a stalling summer into a merely slow one, while average hourly earnings at 0.3% monthly and 3.1% annually are not a wage spiral. Set against that, University of Michigan sentiment fell to 47.8 from 51.7 while one year inflation expectations jumped to 4.6% from 4.0%. Positioning is thin: CFTC data for the week ending 8 September shows speculative Dollar longs cut to under $19.4 billion from close to $50 billion in late July.

Price Levels 

• Support: 98.85 → 98.45 → 97.60 
• Resistance: 99.36 → 99.66 → 100.00

Technical View: The chart carries a double bottom, with Bottom 1 near 98.45 in early September and Bottom 2 near 98.50 a week later, both holding the same band. The neckline sits near 99.80 and the measured target near 101.20, so at 99.08 price is between the base and the trigger, and the pattern is drawn but not active until 99.80 gives way.

Outlook: Two sided. A hike with dots showing an early turn to cuts is already priced, while upward revisions to the near term dots have the most room to run given how few traders are long.

Gold trades near 4337 after falling roughly 9% from the late August peak near 4700 to an intraday low of 4282. The metal did the opposite of what the headlines suggested it should, and the explanation runs through the yield channel: crude above $100 lifted inflation expectations, those lifted nominal yields, and the 10 year reached 4.951%. Bullion pays no coupon, so a rising real yield is a direct cost of carry, and the break of the 200 day average near 4530 on 28 August added technical selling on top.

Friday showed the other side of that trade. The metal dipped below 4300 after the inflation report, then recovered as the Dollar's rally faded and yields slipped into the close. That 4282 has now held twice is a more useful observation than the size of the decline before it.

Price Levels 

• Support: 4284 → 4200 → 4165 
• Resistance: 4386 → 4453 → 4510

Technical View: A triangle is drawn off the late August high with two sided targets, roughly 4790 above and 4050 below, and a double bottom sits underneath at 4284 and 4300. Price is on the upper edge of the band that contains both bottoms, and neither triangle target becomes live until price leaves it.

Outlook: Rangebound. Projections pointing to earlier cuts ease the pressure from yields and put 4386 in play, while a close below 4284 opens 4200 with little between

Sterling trades near 1.3520 with the densest domestic calendar of anything on this list. Labour data lands Tuesday, CPI Wednesday ahead of the FOMC, the Bank of England Thursday and retail sales Friday. Four domestic events in four days make the Pound one of the few instruments here that can move on something other than the Fed.

The Bank is expected to hold at 3.75%, but the vote is the story. The forecast split is six for no change against three for a hike, a genuinely divided committee. Core CPI is expected at 2.7% from 2.6% the morning before, so the print and the vote get read together. The labour data points the other way, with unemployment forecast at 5.0% from 4.9% and the claimant count at 8.3K after a fall of 11K. Three members voting to hike while unemployment rises is an uncomfortable position to defend at a press conference.

Price Levels 

• Support: 1.3505 → 1.3474 → 1.3435 
• Resistance: 1.3550 → 1.3570 → 1.3650

Technical View: Both patterns are drawn on the chart. A head and shoulders top, with the head at 1.3660 and the right shoulder at 1.3570, projects toward 1.3270, while a falling wedge with three bottoms clustered near 1.3480 projects toward 1.3560. Both sit inside the apex of the larger triangle running from May, which is why the pair has gone quiet, and price at 1.3520 is between them.

Outlook: Cautious. Wednesday is the session that decides it, with a hold above 1.3550 the first sign buyers have taken the zone back and 1.3474 the next reference below 1.3505.

USD/JPY trades near 153.58 into the best two sided setup of the week. The Bank of Japan is expected to raise its policy rate to 1.25% on Friday, the market now favours two hikes this year, and front end JGB yields have reached multi decade highs. Scott Bessent has publicly warned traders against betting on a weaker Yen, saying he has good insight into what the Bank does when he intervenes, an unusually direct statement about another country's currency.

The pair has already travelled from around 160 in anticipation, and Japan spent a record 15.4 trillion yen between 30 July and 26 August defending it. Morgan Stanley takes the other side. In a note reported by Bloomberg, strategists argued the strength reflects short term carry positions unwinding on speculation about Government Pension Investment Fund repatriation rather than any change in fundamentals, and that large scale repatriation looks unlikely. They recommend a long targeting 163 with a stop at 150.

Price Levels 

• Support: 152.92 → 152.30 → 152.00 
• Resistance: 154.80 → 155.48 → 156.67

Technical View: The chart shows the entire February to July advance from 152 to 164 given back, with two near vertical drops in early August and early September doing most of it. Price now sits on the line near 153 that marks the February base, with no pattern drawn above it, which makes 152.00 the last defined support before the chart opens up.

Outlook: Capped. A Fed hike widens the rate gap on Wednesday before the BoJ narrows it on Friday, and Ueda's press conference usually carries more information than the statement.

WTI opens near 102.70, up 2.45% and back at last week's highs, with no scheduled data to trade on. That leaves the Strait and the sanctions campaign, which is how crude has traded all quarter. The 8 September escalation was a step change rather than another headline, and transit counts are the number to watch rather than any individual incident.

Price followed, with WTI basing at 95.37 before reaching 103.86. What matters for the week is that this is not purely a risk premium story. The Energy Information Administration raised its second half Brent forecast on 9 September, Chinese buying picked up and US inventories fell, so supply and demand are moving in the same direction as the headlines for the first time this quarter. The weekend incidents extended the move rather than faded it.

Price Levels 

• Support: 99.30 → 94.13 → 87.20 
• Resistance: 104.73 → 105.97 → 110.00

Technical View: The chart shows a clean upside break from the descending triangle drawn off the May high at 112.50, followed by an almost vertical run from the high 80s to 103.61, and price is retesting last week's high rather than consolidating beneath it. Beneath the market the chart is thin, with the first band at 94 to 95 and the next at 87 to 88.

Outlook: Firm while transits stay depressed. Holding 99.30 keeps the structure intact, and the gaps between levels mean single headlines can cover several dollars in either direction.

USD/CAD trades near 1.3871 with Canadian inflation opening the week. CPI lands Monday with headline last at 3.0% and Bank of Canada core at 2.3%, arriving into a trade conflict that escalated sharply on 8 September. Ottawa imposed counter tariffs covering CA$27.6 billion of US imports that morning, at rates from 15% to 50% across roughly 700 product lines including steel, aluminium, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, plastics and electronics, with duties on US steel, aluminium and iron doubled to 50%. Ottawa described it as a dollar for dollar match of the US Section 338 measures imposed on 22 August.

Washington responded the same day, banning imports of many Canadian dairy products, motorcycles and alcoholic beverages from 29 September, which puts a further catalyst on the calendar. Carney suspended negotiations on 22 August, Greer has said no new talks are scheduled, and Ottawa has announced a CA$7.5 billion support package. Set against all of it, crude above $100 is meaningful support for the Canadian Dollar, since oil is the country's largest export.

Price Levels 

• Support: 1.3843 → 1.3765 → 1.3730 → 1.3700 

• Resistance: 1.3900 → 1.3940 → 1.3960

Technical View: Two wedges are drawn on the chart and both are still live. A rising wedge from the early September low projects toward 1.3960, and a falling wedge into the mid September low projects toward 1.3755. Price sits between them and just above the 1.3850 shelf, which decides which of the two is the one to follow.

Outlook: Two sided. Tariffs argue for a higher pair and oil argues for a lower one, with Monday's core print deciding which leads into the Fed.

The Nasdaq 100 trades near 29,017, down 1.19% and the weakest thing on the board to start the week. It is also the most rate sensitive index on this list, which makes Wednesday a double event: the decision and the dot plot set the discount rate assumption, and US retail sales set the demand assumption. Sales are forecast at 0.9% after a fall of 0.6%, a sharp rebound if it lands, and the gap between those two numbers is wide enough that a miss either way is meaningful.

The AI story from last week belongs here. A 23,000 fall in information sector employment is the first such reading to come from inside the sector that drives this index, and it sits alongside a public resignation at Anthropic on safety grounds and Altman ruling out an OpenAI listing this year for the same reason. That cuts two ways: removing a trillion dollar offering takes pressure off equity supply, while a frontier lab slowing down for safety reasons works against the growth assumptions holding these multiples up. Anthropic still expects to market its own offering from mid-October.

Price Levels 

• Support: 29,000 → 28,870 → 28,230 
• Resistance: 29,460 → 29,740 → 29,955

Technical View: A rectangle is drawn from early September between roughly 28,800 and 29,750, with targets at 30,750 above and 28,000 below, and a double bottom sits on the rectangle floor near 28,850. Price is in the lower half of the range and falling, so the floor is the nearer of the two edges.

Outlook: Bearish bias. Everything hinges on 29,000, and losing it on a closing basis is the more consequential outcome given the space beneath.

AUD/USD trades near 0.7152 with two inputs this week and neither is Australian data. China's industrial production and retail sales land Tuesday with both expected to accelerate, and if they print as forecast it would be the first genuine improvement in months. China is Australia's largest export market, so that release matters more here than most local numbers do. Bullock then speaks Thursday evening, which is Friday morning locally.

The domestic backdrop is more mixed than the rate commentary suggests. Assistant Governor Sarah Hunter said last week the Bank may need to raise again if inflation proves more persistent than expected. But consumer and business confidence both disappointed and the local share market sold off. A central bank talking about tightening into softening confidence is a tension Bullock will be asked to resolve.

Price Levels 

• Support: 0.7137 → 0.7120 → 0.7077 
• Resistance: 0.7182 → 0.7200 → 0.7220

Technical View: The chart carries a rising wedge running from the early August low at 0.6920 to the September high at 0.7240, and price is now sitting on its lower boundary. The measured target at 0.6965 is effectively the wedge origin and sits well below third support, so read it as the pattern's full projection rather than an expectation, and note the wedge has to break first.

Outlook: Neutral. The China data on Tuesday is often underweighted in a week with an FOMC attached, and a break under 0.7120 opens a wide gap toward the 100 day average.

The Hang Seng trades near 24,772 and carries the China story more directly than anything else here. Industrial production and retail sales land Tuesday and both are forecast to accelerate. After a long run of disappointing releases, two improving prints in the same report would be the first real evidence that activity is turning rather than stabilising, and the index has traded on expectation rather than delivery all year.

The counterweight is external. A higher US policy rate feeds through the Hong Kong dollar peg into local funding costs, so the index faces a domestic improvement and an external tightening within the same 48 hours, in that order.

Price Levels 

• Support: 24,710 → 24,480 → 24,330 
• Resistance: 25,030 → 25,220 → 25,415

Technical View: An inverse head and shoulders is drawn with the head at 22,450 in early July and a neckline near 25,100. It broke out in August, ran to 26,200, then round tripped the entire move, so the 27,700 target still on the chart is not a live projection unless the 25,030 to 25,220 band is reclaimed.

Outlook: Constructive. Two accelerating prints on Tuesday would put 25,030 in play and take the index back through the neckline at the same time, and the data lands before the Fed.

Bitcoin trades near 76,840 into the first meeting of the cycle where the liquidity question is not theoretical. August's advance was driven substantially by a liquidity bid, and a Fed that actually raises after three holds tests whether that bid survives a tighter policy setting.

The projections matter more than the hike here, for the same reason they matter to gold. A single move followed by a path back toward 3.1% is a very different liquidity picture to a hike with the near term dots revised higher, and Bitcoin has historically traded the expected path of policy rather than its level.

Price Levels 

• Support: 76,815 → 76,050 → 74,160 
• Resistance: 78,000 → 79,500 → 81,500

Technical View: The late August move from 64,000 to 82,000 was close to vertical and left no structure behind it. Price is now on the upper edge of the only band between here and 66,000, which is what makes first and second support unusually close together and third support so far below.

Outlook: Consolidating. Holding 76,815 keeps the range in place with 78,000 the first upside test, while losing both nearby levels opens a wide gap.

Last week made the case for a Fed hike, and Wednesday is when they may deliver it. Payrolls came in at 162,000 against 53,000 expected, the strongest in five months. Inflation then ran hot. Hike odds went from seventy percent to eighty six.

Energy repriced at the same time. US forces sank five Iranian tankers, Iran hit ten vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, and the Houthis seized MOK-UH. Transits fell to seven ships from eighteen, and Brent Crude touched a hundred and nine. Gold went the other way, down nine percent, because that same inflation impulse pushed the ten year yield to four point nine five. Then on Tuesday an Anthropic researcher quit over safety, and on Saturday Altman ruled out an OpenAI listing this year. 

This week: Canadian inflation Monday. China data Tuesday. UK inflation Wednesday morning, then the Fed that evening, where the dot plot matters as much as the decision. The Bank of England Thursday. . The Bank of Japan Friday, expected to hike into a Yen at seven month highs.

Key prices to watch: one hundred flat on WTI. Forty three eighty six on gold. Ninety nine thirty six on the Dollar Index. And twenty nine thousand on the Nasdaq, where it's sitting right now. Stay sharp and see you all next week.