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The two funding currencies split this hour, and the largest cell on the board names the trade. Into the New York afternoon the franc rose a median 15.1 basis points against all seven of its major counterparts — its first all-board bid in days — while the yen fell 12.4 against all seven of its own, with no Swiss or Japanese release anywhere near the window and no Swiss headline in current reporting: no central bank remark, no data, nothing.

What did print is the geometry. The yen's biggest loss was not to the dollar, which took just 4.6 basis points from it while Treasury yields eased at every tenor; it was to the franc, at 24.4 basis points — and the franc's next-largest gain was 19.7 from that soft dollar. This is not a rates hour and it is not a haven hour; it is the unwind of the relative-value trade the market has carried since mid-August, when carry traders pivoted their funding leg from the yen to the franc after the summer's yen volatility, driving hedge-fund franc shorts to a two-month high even as yen shorts were halved.

All week that trade paid: the franc was offered on nearly every hour while the yen made seven-month highs. This hour both legs closed at once — the crowded franc short bought back on every cross, the crowded yen long trimmed on every cross — which is what taking off a spread looks like, not what changing a view looks like.

The tell is that the yen was sold through a falling-yield hour: all day the pattern has been that when American front-end yields slip the yen gets bought, and this hour the two-year, ten-year and long bond futures all rose — 1.5, 7.3 and 11.3 basis points of price — and the bid went to the franc instead.

Positions are being flattened where they are most crowded, into three decisions in ten days: American inflation Friday, the Federal Reserve on the 15th and 16th with roughly 60 percent of a hike priced, and a Bank of Japan meeting at which a hike is priced at 97 percent. The backdrop keeps a floor under the haven complex besides — oil is pressing toward 100 dollars a barrel as the Strait of Hormuz stalemate holds ship traffic down — and at seven-month highs the yen is the expensive haven while the franc, after weeks as the market's borrow, is the cheap one.

Around the edges the euro was quietly firm into Thursday's European Central Bank decision, the Canadian dollar held its oil bid with Ottawa's budget due at 20:03 GMT, and sterling drifted soft as the testimony hedge finished coming off. The broken 155.20-155.25 floor is still overhead and untested from below; nothing in the yen's case moved this hour — but the market's most crowded expression of it just got smaller from both ends.