⏱️ ~4 min read
📊 Today's Numbers
US 30-Year Treasury Yield ▲ 5.26%: highest borrowing cost since 2001
US 10-Year Treasury Yield ▲ ~4.70%: mortgage rates tracking above 7.50%
Gold Spot ▲ $4,437/oz: fresh cycle high on haven demand
Crude Oil ▲ $82.40/bbl: Hormuz still closed, EIA raised price forecasts
USD/JPY ▼ ~159.00: yen soft ahead of GDP miss
Fed Sep Hike Probability ▼ 32%: down from 44% after soft July data
🏦 MACROECONOMIC
Photo: Lyle Smith
The 50% Canada Tariff Is 48 Hours Away — and There's No Deal Yet
Negotiators from both sides met through the early hours of Monday morning trying to get a draft framework to President Trump before a 50% tariff on roughly US$20 billion of Canadian goods lands at 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday. These aren't niche industrial goods. We're talking autos, dairy, and alcohol — and they override USMCA protections that have underpinned North American trade for years.
Tariff scope: ~US$20 billion in Canadian exports, covering autos, dairy, alcohol, cement, furniture, and clothing — effective August 19 under the rarely invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has flagged C$30 billion in retaliatory tariffs, which would put deeply integrated auto supply chains under serious stress on both sides of the border
Canadian markets re-open Monday alongside July CPI data, creating a volatile cocktail for the loonie and TSX Composite before the deadline even arrives
💬 If you bought a new car, a wheel of aged cheddar, or a bottle of Canadian whisky last week, you got in just under the wire.
📉 BONDS
Photo: Mark Youso
The US Just Sold 30-Year Debt at the Highest Rate Since 2001
A US$25 billion auction of 30-year Treasuries priced at 5.216% last week, the steepest yield on long US government debt in 25 years. The message from bond markets is blunt: investors want more compensation to hold American debt, and they're getting it. The downstream effects are already showing up in mortgage rates, which have been tracking above 7.50% for 30-year fixed loans.
30-year Treasury yield: ~5.26%; 10-year: ~4.70% — the auction result confirmed demand is thin at these durations without meaningfully higher rates
EIA revised 2026 gasoline prices up 3.70% and diesel up 5.40% — energy-driven inflation keeps the long-end risk premium alive and bond prices under pressure
Fed September hike probability sits at 32%, down from 44% after softer July CPI (core: 2.50% YoY) and a 0.60% drop in retail sales — but it's not off the table
💬 Washington is now paying more to borrow for 30 years than at any point during the dot-com boom, the financial crisis, or the pandemic.
🏦 MACROECONOMIC
Photo: sugar jet
Japan's Economy Grew at Half the Expected Speed in Q2
Japan's preliminary Q2 GDP came in at 1.10% annualised, against a 2.00% consensus. That's not a rounding error. The miss directly weakens the case for a Bank of Japan rate hike in September, which markets had been treating as a genuine possibility. With USD/JPY already sitting around 159, a prolonged delay to BoJ tightening means the yen stays soft, and soft yen means everything imported into Japan gets more expensive.
Q2 annualised GDP: 1.10% vs. 2.00% forecast — a 0.90 percentage point miss that puts the BoJ's own cautious 0.60% fiscal-year growth outlook under question
USD/JPY near 159.00 — fading rate-hike expectations remove a key support for the yen, extending pressure on import costs for Japanese households
💬 The Bank of Japan wanted to hike rates this autumn. Japan's own economy may just have vetoed that.
📰 Also Today
Gold hits $4,437/oz in Monday session: Spot gold touched $4,437.30, up 0.38% on the day, with the US Dollar Index near the weak end of its August range at 99.50 — Morgan Stanley has flagged that another metal may actually outperform from here.
China July activity data drops this morning: Beijing's retail sales, industrial output, and fixed-asset investment figures arrived as the key test of whether the world's second-largest economy is tracking its 4.50–5.00% growth target — China drives roughly 50% of global steel and copper demand, so the read-through to commodity prices is direct.
Canadian July CPI lands the same day as the tariff countdown: The 8:30 a.m. ET inflation print hits as the Bank of Canada faces its hardest policy call in years — a soft number gives room to cut rates to cushion the tariff hit, but the tariff itself could push prices higher almost immediately, a stagflation scenario no central bank handles cleanly.
🎧 Listen to today's episode — The Open Bell with Alex Monroe
The 50% Canada tariff is 48 hours out — if you know someone who's got a view on it, send this their way.
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Not investment advice. For informational purposes only.