The big picture, 2026-10-01

The Bank of Japan is the only major central bank in today's material moving toward tightening, and its own Summary concedes the neutral rate may exceed market estimates — a repricing of the JGB curve that foreign investors have already begun to trade, selling Japanese equities and then extending net selling to long- and short-term debt. The same institution is trimming its own long-end purchases, so the sovereign's maturity mix and the private bid are being tested at once. Europe's fiscal thread runs the other way: Finland's debt ratio has crossed the euro-area average, Austria's has edged further above four-fifths of GDP while its half-year deficit narrowed, and Lagarde names French debt at more than a year's national output as the refinancing channel through which the ECB's June and September tightening bites. The holds in Yaoundé and Zurich belong to neither thread — both leave policy rates unchanged with inflation still below target, and both are about the currency and coverage ratios rather than the debt supply that dominates the rest of the page.