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The yen is weaker against all seven of its major counterparts this morning — a median 11.7 basis points — and the cause is not Japanese. It is the Tokyo stock market. Japan's Nikkei rebounded 2.0% after losing about the same amount last week, South Korea rallied 3.0%, and the broader Asia-Pacific index outside Japan added 0.9%, with the rally credited to Friday's US employment report being read as good news for global growth even as it shortened the odds on higher American interest rates.

When Asian risk appetite comes back, the yen is the first thing sold. That is the whole of this hour. What makes it worth reporting is the round trip. The yen opened the week 11.8 basis points stronger across these same seven crosses on the weekend's tanker exchange in the Gulf, added another 14.5 when Tokyo's own trading day began, and has now handed back 11.7 of it.

The dollar is quoted back near 156.2 yen, close to where Friday finished. The 155.20-155.25 zone that turned the yen back three times last week was not reached on either leg of the advance, and stands untested for a fourth time. Two payments of insurance and one refund, inside twelve hours.

The ordering of the give-back mirrors the gap, with one exception, and the exception is the informative part. The yen loses most to the Canadian dollar at 15.5 basis points — the largest single leg on the board — then the Australian dollar at 14.7 and the US dollar at 14.5, and least of all to the Swiss franc at 8.1.

Both havens were sold and the yen harder, which is the reverse of Sunday night, when the franc was the one currency the yen barely gained against. The exception is the New Zealand dollar: the yen took 15.8 basis points from it at the reopen and 20.6 at the Tokyo open, and returns only 5.4 now.

The kiwi is the one currency that does not get its money back. It is second-worst on the board at -6.4 and lower against six of seven, sold hardest against the loonie at 10.2 and against the Australian dollar at 9.1 — the antipodean spread that opened on Friday morning is back. Its problem is the one it has carried since the Reserve Bank delivered a hike into a rate track shallower than the market had priced, with the next move signalled for December rather than October.

Now the part that matters most: the reason for the yen's safety bid has not gone away. Oil is higher, not lower. Brent added 0.2% to $96.45 a barrel and US crude 0.4% to $91.85, after climbing almost 10% last week, and Tehran has still said it will announce a restricted zone beyond the Strait of Hormuz in the coming days, after US forces struck three Iranian tankers and the Revolutionary Guard fired ballistic missiles at two US Navy ships.

Selling the hedge while the hazard is intact is the market classifying this as a continuation rather than a rupture — the strait has been effectively shut for months and this is being traded as more of the same. The two lines that would change that classification are unchanged: American strikes moving from tankers at sea to Iran's export infrastructure onshore, or the prohibited zone actually declared and enforced rather than promised.

That firm crude is also why the Canadian dollar leads the board at +4.6 and is higher on all seven legs. Note what it is not pricing. At one minute past midnight on 8 September, Canada's counter-tariffs on about C$27.6 billion of US goods take effect, at 15%, 25% and 50%, matched rate-for-rate against Washington's measures and covering steel and aluminium, furniture, clothing, appliances, dairy, seafood and paper.

The loonie is being bought for oil today, the day before a trade escalation it is on the wrong side of. On rates, hold the asymmetry in view, because it sizes what just happened. Futures put a quarter-point Bank of Japan move on 18 September at about 75%, and the Federal Reserve at 58% for 16 September and 70% for October.

None of that changed this morning, and the yen was sold anyway — which tells you how much of last week's rally was insurance rather than policy. The yen's rate case is intact; it simply is not what moved the currency this hour. Elsewhere the board is thin. The dollar's +3.8 is again mostly a funding leg: dead flat against the Australian dollar, a basis point behind the loonie, and up only 2.8 on the euro.

The euro at +1.0 is mid-pack and still not pricing Sunday's German state result, where the AfD won Saxony-Anhalt, the first far-right victory in a post-war German state election — that remains a coalition-and-reform question for the months ahead rather than a currency event. The euro's own week is Thursday, when the European Central Bank is expected to raise rates and futures already put a further move by December near 75%, with US consumer prices following on Friday.

Sterling at -1.0 has nothing new ahead of the Bank of England on 17 September. And on Ukraine, the weekend produced atmospherics and no agreement: Witkoff and Kushner are pushing for trilateral talks after meeting Putin in Moscow on Saturday and Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday, with no date, no ceasefire and nothing signed.