Jason Douglas

We actually had a pretty volatile week.

There was a big tech sell-off, especially software-related companies.

The Dow has less software exposure.

It fared better and has been hanging out just below record high for quite a while.

And then today we've had a relief rally across markets.

We're seeing tech come back a little bit, including NVIDIA.

NVIDIA is now a component of the Dow that's been helping drive things higher.

So are industrial stalwarts like Caterpillar and 3M.

So, Sanae Takeuchi, the prime minister, called a snap election.

One of her first policy pledges was to waive consumption tax on food for a couple of years.

On the face of it, maybe not a huge deal, but it turns out this would cost something like $30 billion a year.

And she didn't really explain how she was going to pay for it.

The result of this was that yields of Japanese bonds spiked higher as their prices fell.

Pretty big, chunky moves that spooked a lot of people.

The reason this is important for global markets and what we saw actually after the Japanese yields moved higher was that yields on

Other bonds, including US Treasuries, also moved higher.

One of the reasons Japanese bonds are so important for global markets is that Japanese investors have a hell of a lot of money invested overseas.

And if you see yields spiking higher at home, that might tend to bring some of that money home.

And that has consequences then for all sorts of foreign assets, particularly bonds like US Treasuries, stocks, other things like that.

That's right.