The Fed minutes came out and Saxo’s headline is “Yields hit 24-year highs after hawkish Fed minutes.” But the other headline, from Yahoo, is the one I keep rereading: the Fed was unanimous about raising rates in September, and the economic signals have since changed. Friday’s jobs number was 29,000. The NYT has a top Fed official casting doubt on a hike this month. Axios has the minutes saying officials feared inflation pressures could spread.

So the document is a photograph of a room from three weeks ago, and the market is trading it like a live feed. Waller adds that more hikes are needed, a 30-year auction is pending, and the 30-year trades through its own record. Add oil up 4% on the threat of war resuming in Iran, and Dow futures down 500 at one point. A month ago oil sliding was the relief trade. Now Brent sits above $105 again and the relief is gone.

What puzzles me is the direction of causation. Minutes are supposed to move yields. But last week yields moved on weak jobs, then rebounded anyway, which suggests the buyers of long bonds aren’t really looking at the Fed. They’re looking at deficits, France, oil, and whoever else is selling duration. The central bank is talking, and the bond market is mostly talking back to oil.

Meanwhile PepsiCo cut guidance and Samsung made $80 billion in a quarter, in the same news cycle. A snack company and a memory chip maker now look like they live in different countries. Maybe they do.

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