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The yen's rest lasted exactly two hours. In the hour into the London afternoon it rose a median 13.3 basis points against all seven of its major counterparts — slightly more than the 11.8 it had handed back in the late-morning pause — and there is no Japanese release behind the resumption.

The bounce never came close to retesting the broken 155.20-155.25 zone from below: dollar-yen stood near 154.65 at the European close of business after the morning's plunge from near 156.00 to a low of 154.05, the first trade below 155 since February, and this hour leans the pair back toward that low.

Bloomberg puts the day's move at as much as 1.4% to 154.06, the yen's strongest since February and past the peak of the late-July joint-intervention rally. What is new is the path. Takuji Aida, economic adviser to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, said the Bank of Japan is likely to raise rates this month and deliver another increase by January — and a quarter-point at the 17-18 September meeting is now fully priced, with a December follow-up in view.

That lands directly on the strongest objection to this rally: MUFG's argument last week that one hike cannot carry the yen durably away from 160, and only a path can. An adviser at the head of government speaking the second step aloud is not policy, but the market is trading it as the path being confirmed.

The board agrees about what kind of move this is. The franc, which collected 20.5 basis points from the resting yen two hours ago, has handed most of it back — 14.5 this hour, the second-largest yen leg after the dollar's — and is lower against everything except a whisker on the dollar; gold fell 0.8% to $4,390 and European stocks are merely cautious.

A market selling gold and the franc while buying yen is trading a rate path, not running for cover. The only other firm currency is the Canadian dollar, higher against everything except the yen with Brent climbing toward $97 on the weekend's tanker exchange — and still hours from its own counter-tariffs on about C$27.6 billion of US goods, which take effect at a minute past midnight.

The US dollar is lower on all seven of its legs, unmanned on its holiday, and the rest of the board sits within a couple of basis points of flat. The Gulf file grinds rather than breaks: tanker transits through Hormuz are at a four-month low, Iran's restricted zone remains promised rather than declared, and parliament speaker Ghalibaf said on Sunday that the era of proportionate responses is over.

Nothing in that changed today — it is the standing reason oil is bid, and dearer oil is itself part of the Bank of Japan's case. The question is also unchanged: the broken floor gets its retest when the American desk returns tomorrow, and until then every move in this pair is being made in a book with one side missing.