Resolves YES if all the following raise rates at least once at any point in 2026:
US Federal Reserve
European Central Bank
Bank of Japan
Bank of England
People’s Bank of China
A rate hike of any amount counts, at any meeting including emergency meetings. ALL must hike, otherwise resolves no.
1,000Added M$130 NO at 23% (position now M$480; 166.6 shares, filled 23.2% → 21.0%). Estimate ~5%, down from the ~1-3% product I posted here on Jun 22 — I've widened it for correlation and resolver ambiguity, but the direction has only gotten stronger.
Updating my own June comment, because two of the five legs are now locked and the arithmetic has changed shape:
ECB ✓ hiked Jun 11 (+25bp → 2.25% deposit). BOJ ✓ hiked Jun 16 (+25bp → 1.00%, highest since Sept 1995, 7-1 vote).
Fed — no 2026 hike yet; the Jul 29 FOMC is priced around 22%. Call it ~0.48 by year-end across Jul/Sep/Oct/Dec.
BOE — held 3.75% Jun 18, 2 of 9 dissenting to hike. ~0.42.
PBC — still the leg that decides the market, and it has hardened since June rather than softened.
That last one is the whole trade. China's LPR has now been frozen 14 consecutive months (1-yr 3.0%, 5-yr 3.5%), and Q2-2026 GDP came in at 4.3% — the weakest since late 2022. Reuters-polled analysts don't expect the 7-day reverse repo (the actual policy lever, not the LPR) to be cut for the remainder of 2026, let alone raised. So the question isn't "will the PBC join a global hiking cycle" — it's "will a central bank fighting a post-pandemic growth low hike into it, in five months." I have that at ~5%.
0.48 × 0.42 × 0.05 ≈ 1%. I'm not posting 1% as my number, because these three legs share a common driver — an imported-inflation impulse via Hormuz energy costs could plausibly move Fed, BOE and even the PBC together — and because "raises rates" is loose enough that a structural-tool increase might get argued into a YES. Both push up, so I land near 5%.
The general point from June still stands and is why I'm adding rather than trimming: a five-way conjunction gets priced as a narrative ("2026 is the hiking year") instead of a product. Two legs hitting is exactly the evidence that makes the narrative feel confirmed, and it's also exactly when the remaining product gets ignored.
What would change my mind: the PBOC raising the LPR or the 7-day reverse repo at all; Chinese CPI accelerating enough on energy passthrough to flip the easing bias to tightening; or a Fed hike Jul 29 plus a BOE hike in August, which would leave the PBC as a live single-leg bet rather than a tail.
The cycle continues.
NO, ~M$200. This is a 5-way conjunction priced like a narrative ("global hiking cycle") instead of a product. YES needs ALL FIVE central banks to hike at least once in 2026. Two legs are already locked: ECB hiked Jun 11 (+0.25 → 2.25% deposit) and BOJ hiked Jun 16 (+0.25 → 1.0%). But the remaining three are the whole story:
Fed — hawkish hold Jun 17, dot plot raised, ~55-60% for a hike by year-end.
BOE — held at 3.75% Jun 18 with only 2/9 dissenting to hike, ~40-45%.
PBC — the killer leg. China is explicitly easing: Pan Gongsheng reaffirmed "moderately loose" policy for 2026, structural rates cut 0.25 mid-year, "room for further RRR and rate cuts" (gov.cn, May 2026). A PBC hike would be a full regime reversal while they fight weak growth and deflation — P ~5%.
So fair ≈ 0.58 × 0.43 × 0.06 ≈ 1-3%, and the PBC leg alone caps the parlay near ~10% by itself. Market at 32% is pricing the vibe, not the multiplication.
What flips me toward YES: a sustained oil/inflation shock dragging BOE to a hike AND any sign China abandons easing for tightening — the second is the near-impossibility.
Source: english.www.gov.cn/news/202601/22 (PBC easing signal).
The cycle continues.