Market News | Saudi Output Hits 1990 Low as WTI Tops $100 and the Two-Year Prices a Full Hiking Cycle

Saudi Arabia told OPEC its crude production fell by another 1.9 million barrels per day last month to 6.238 million — the lowest figure since 1990, per Bloomberg. WTI crude rose 4.25% to $100.11 a barrel, its first close above $100 since May. Brent climbed beyond $105, also a first since May. Bitcoin fell 3.4% over 24 hours to $76,750. Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 1.3%, gold slipped 0.5% and silver fell more than 4%. The Two-Year at 4.50% Is Pricing a Cycle, Not a Hike The most consequential number of the session sits in the short end. The US two-year yield jumped another seven basis points to 4.50%, a level not seen in more than two years. That places it nearly 100 basis points above the fed funds target range of 3.50%-3.75%. A two-year trading a full percentage point above the policy rate is not a market pricing one 25 basis point move. It is a market pricing a sequence. Expectations for a hike at next week's meeting rose to 76%, well above last week's peak. The 10-year reached 4.92%, up 11.4 basis points, and the 30-year rose 7.6 basis points to 5.362%. The selloff is global, with yields across the West and Japan at or near multi-year highs. Core PPI Came in Softer and the Bond Market Ignored It The inflation data cut against the move, which makes the selloff more telling. Core PPI rose just 0.2% in August against 0.3% expected and 0.3% in July. Market strategist James Thorne noted the actual figure was 0.162%, rounded up by the BLS — the second-lowest core PPI reading in a year. Headline PPI rose 0.4%, in line with forecasts but up sharply from 0.1% in July. Year-over-year, PPI hit 5.4% against 5.3% expected and 4.8% prior, with core PPI at 4.6% against 4.3% in July. The pattern is the same one CPI is forecast to show Friday: headline accelerating on energy while core holds. A softer core print doing nothing to slow the bond selloff suggests traders have stopped treating core as the operative measure. 21Shares senior crypto research strategist Matt Mena said the hotter headline was not much of a surprise given recent oil moves, and flagged Friday's CPI as the bigger test — a number that could determine whether investors remain willing to take risk into quarter-end. The Treasury Accepted Less Than It Offered to Buy The buyback result deserves attention. Treasury received $10.5 billion in tenders against its announced intent to repurchase up to $6 billion, and accepted $5.2 billion. That is a program twice oversubscribed, in which the buyer declined roughly $800 million of its own stated ceiling. Since the program's 2024 reintroduction it had bought the full amount in 50 of 52 operations targeting long-term nominal debt. Yields sat near session highs afterward. Druckenmiller Says Yields Are Too Low, Not Too High Stan Druckenmiller told a private audience that Fed members describing policy as restrictive are "just ridiculous," according to the Financial Times. "If anything, [bond yields seem] a little low," he said. "I believe in common sense, and all you have to do is look at [surging] asset prices around the world." The relationships make the comment unusually pointed. Druckenmiller is a longtime colleague and mentor to both Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. He has already criticised Bessent publicly for attempting to suppress long-term rates, and Bessent responded by suggesting Druckenmiller was talking his book and likely losing money on a trade. Rates have moved higher since Bessent's effort to cap yields began, with the 10-year now at 4.92% against roughly 4.75% in mid-August. Timiraos: Markets Are Pricing a Hike Warsh Never Promised The Wall Street Journal's Nick Timiraos identified the structural problem underneath the repricing. "Warsh's Jackson Hole speech convinced investors a rate hike was more likely but didn't tell them what would trigger one," he wrote, as fixed-income traders rushed to hedge against not just a hike next week but a full cycle. "This leaves Friday's inflation report viewed as the thing that will authorize or block a rate hike — the kind of decision-making Warsh has spent years arguing against." That is the irony of the position. Warsh rejected forward guidance because he believed it constrained the Fed's freedom to act. The absence of guidance has instead handed a single data release the power to determine policy. Former senior Fed economist Vincent Reinhart put it more colourfully: "This is the market testing you. This is the 'double-dog' daring you. This is straight schoolyard." The ECB Hiked and Lifted Its 2027-2028 Inflation Outlook The European Central Bank raised rates 25 basis points as fully expected, lifting the Main Refinancing Operations Rate to 2.65% from 2.40% and the Deposit Facility Rate to 2.5% from 2.25%. It also raised its inflation outlook for 2027 and 2028 while leaving 2026 unchanged. "The outlook remains highly uncertain, with risks to the upside for inflation and to the downside for economic growth," the bank said. The euro slipped to $1.1615. Deutsche Bank chief European economist Mark Wall said another ECB hike in December now looks "more likely than not," though higher gas prices complicate the picture by adding to near-term inflation while pressuring growth later. "The question is how much and when," he said of the hit to output. Crypto Equities Held Up Better Than Semiconductors The relative performance within the selloff is worth noting. Strategy fell 1.5%, Bullish 0.2% and Coinbase 0.6% — modest declines against Bitcoin's 3.4% drop and a broad risk-off session. Memory and semiconductor names took heavier damage. The Roundhill Memory ETF fell more than 4% and the VanEck Semiconductor ETF nearly 2%. That inversion is unusual. Crypto equities typically carry higher beta than semiconductors in a risk-off move. Rate-sensitive long-duration assets bore the brunt instead, which is consistent with a selloff driven by yields rather than growth fears. "You Can't Financial Engineer Your Way Out of a Shortage" A chart circulating Thursday plotted a global bond index against a commodity basket, showing two distinct legs down. The first came as governments printed currency during the Covid response. The second, still running, began when the US attacked Iran in February. "COVID stimulus broke the bond bubble, the Iran War sealed its fate," read the annotation. Marty Bent's summary: "The world needs more stuff, not more financialization. You can manipulate the price of money. You can't financial engineer your way out of a shortage of energy and raw materials." That framing connects the Saudi production figure to the yield move directly. A supply shortage in physical commodities is not a monetary problem, and monetary tools do not resolve it. New Clarity Act Draft Runs Past 600 Pages A new draft of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act is circulating among lawmakers ahead of Tuesday's procedural vote. The text obtained by CoinDesk runs over 600 pages and includes changes to provisions addressing certain activities of decentralized finance and traditional finance firms. It remains unclear whether the bill has the support to clear cloture on September 15. It needs 60 votes, and Democrats have continued to raise alarms about the lack of a bipartisan ethics agreement. Polymarket Names Warren Jenson CFO Polymarket appointed Warren Jenson as chief financial officer, reporting to founder and CEO Shayne Coplan. Jenson has previously held the CFO role at Amazon, Electronic Arts, Delta Air Lines and NBC, most recently serving in senior roles at Nielsen and LiveRamp. He sits on the boards of Ripple, DigitalOcean and Dropbox. He joins as Polymarket scales its CFTC-regulated US exchange and expands globally, overseeing finance, capital strategy and long-term planning. Friday's CPI is the last data point before the September 15 cloture vote and the September 16 Fed decision.