Last week’s recap
The US 10-year Treasury yield ran into the old visible levels from 2006–07. For now they could not push it any further — and if they do not go higher, a risk appetite could begin from there. The stock market is still holding despite levels like these.
The Treasuries do not stop, and the wait here was for gold to flush the bulls out properly and go down to the 3800 that has been talked about for a while. On gold there were longs ridden from the marked zone, plus an attempt to accumulate shorts using the clusters in the current balance, hoping for a spill down. For now that is still a wait.
What is needed is the annual October–November climax, and then a pullback becomes possible. The only glitch was on Trump’s win, with the fall into January.
Traders have changed their tune: they are no longer pricing a rate hike in October, on the reasoning that ahead of the elections they will not spoil Trump’s mood with one.
On the euro there were bounces off the options portfolios. The reports still need checking — whether they showed interest in the highs, or are still sitting on volatility trading — but for now there are no directional portfolios in the market at all, only volatility being traded.
In crypto, Solana gave a chance to work shorts. On that zone the long-standing longs accumulated back when crypto was crashing were being closed, and this time the decision was to lock in all of the profit.
The US 10-year yield
This is the key theme right now, so it is worth staying with it.
For a pullback — ideally, so Bessent and Trump can exhale — it needs to get to around 4.68%. The question is whether they will let it, because Treasuries are still being dumped into the market very actively. If those 2006–07 levels break, it heads to the upper zones — and at that point it is genuinely unclear why anyone became so confident the rate will not be hiked.
Mapping the Treasury move onto gold gives the downside targets directly:
- 5.75% on the yield → roughly the 3850–3930 area on gold.
- 6% → roughly 3550–3562.
EUR
The zones are marked, and those zones are the basis for the work.
On top of the rate picture: French Treasuries are, to put it mildly, having a rough week, and bank shares there have already started falling. There is nowhere for positives to come from for the euro right now. If something snaps under that kind of strain there will be a fun long squeeze — and the mass unrest has been added on top of it.
Gold
It is clear what can be worked here, and it has been covered above. The thing actually being watched is the Treasury-to-gold mapping: if yields push into the upper zones, that is where the downside targets on gold come from. After the rate decision, the big players with targets should show up.
France — why this gets so much attention
Worth spelling out, because this is no longer one country’s problem.
France is the second-largest economy in the Eurozone, and its government debt is about €3.6 trillion. French bond yields are rising and the spread to German bunds is widening sharply — which means investors are demanding an ever-greater premium for the risk. If that continues, the cost of servicing the debt grows faster still.
That is exactly why the French debt market could become the black swan for global markets. In a serious panic the consequences reach the banks, the euro, European equities, and from there global markets. And France has no central bank of its own it could simply force to monetize the debt, while the ECB’s options are limited by inflation.
For scale, think back to Greece in 2010–2012. Greek government debt then was around €330 billion — a relatively small sum by global standards. But once investors started doubting Greece’s ability to service it, the bond market panicked. What followed was powerful volatility worldwide, the European debt crisis, and the Flash Crash in the US in May 2010.
So this is being followed especially closely. A systemic problem could emerge here, not just another local bond sell-off.
The plan, in one line
These are zones and scenarios being watched — the market decides, not the trader. Let price come to your levels and let the confirmations line up before you act. New to the terms? The glossary covers every structure named above — and if this is your first visit, where to start lays out a reading order through the free material.