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- The Week in FX and Crypto: September 1, 2026
The Week in FX and Crypto: September 1, 2026
Institutional Market Structure, Distilled Weekly.
mark schaefer
September 01, 2026
In This Issue
FX Recap — Data stayed mixed, Warsh's hawkish Jackson Hole debut decided the week
EUR/USD — Held key support at the 38.2% Fibonacci
USD/JPY — Broke the 100-day for the first time in a month
Gold — Back below the 200-day for the first time in a week
Crude — Round-tripped on Iran headlines
BTC — Double top forming, bias to the downside
FX Recap
Data was all over the place last week. Nothing gave a clear signal.
Then Friday happened. Warsh's first Jackson Hole speech as chair, and it came in hawkish — more hawkish than people expected. September odds jumped.
USD rallied last week, making higher highs and higher lows every day, then got an extra boost when it broke back above the 200-day. Yesterday it ran into resistance at the 100-day moving average. Gold, on the other hand, broke back below its 200-day moving average at 4,529 and is now sitting between the 100-day and 200-day.
Euro and pound both broke down last week. USD/JPY just keeps grinding higher, same as it's been since the intervention. Every dip gets bought.
Gold's the interesting one. It's been trading as both a safe haven and an inflation hedge — last week those two stories split apart. A Fed that sounds serious about inflation is bad for gold, period, no matter what's going on with Iran.
My read: for a month now the dollar's floor has been Iran and yields. Last week it got a second leg — the Fed actually sounding credible — and that mattered more than the geopolitics did, even though the geopolitics didn't really go away. Oil dropped to 80 last week on de-escalation hopes, then rallied right back to 85.76 yesterday as tensions flared again — basically round-tripped since Tuesday, but a real swing in between. Even with that move, the dollar still leaned on Warsh more than the oil action. September FOMC is next up, and now it's a real toss-up, not a done deal either way.
EUR/USD
EUR stopped right at key support Friday — the 38.2% retracement of the July 28th low to the August 20th high. Yesterday’s low built a double bottom off that same zone, and price is now sitting almost exactly on the 20-day MA at 1.1595. Momentum's mixed across timeframes: daily is overbought and rolling over, 4-hour is oversold and turning up — that conflict likely means consolidation before the next real move.
Key Levels
Resistance:
1.1634 — 200-day MA
1.1710 — double top / upper Bollinger Band
Support:
1.1574 — 38.2% Fib
1.1532 — 50% Fib
1.1490 — 61.8% Fib / lower Bollinger Band
USD/JPY
USD/JPY closed above the 100-day MA (160.00) for the first time in a month on Friday. That level also sits right in front of key resistance at 160.78, the 50 day moving average. Momentum's neutral on the daily, but drop to the 4-hour and there was a bearish reversal on a slightly new high — the 200-period MA came in at 160.21, momentum was overbought and turning down, and USD/JPY sold off 70 pips from there.
Key Levels
Resistance
160.00 — 100-day MA
160.39 — upper Bollinger Band
160.82 — 50-day MA
Support
159.03 — 20-day MA
158.43 — 200-day MA
157.68 — lower Bollinger Band
Gold
Gold's selloff on Friday took it back below the 200-day moving average (4527.98), closing under it for the first time in over a week. That price action also pushed momentum over to the downside, at very overbought levels. With price back below the 200 and momentum where it is, gold will likely run into resistance on any rally from here, with a technical bias to the downside.
Key Levels
Resistance
4527.98 — 200-day MA
4696.00 — last week's high
4720.59 — upper Bollinger Band
Support
4370.26 — 100-day MA
4211.05 — 50-day MA
4136.40 — lower Bollinger Band
Crude (CL1 - Cont. Contract)
Crude was supported most of last week and gapped open higher Sunday night on the back of increased tensions in the Middle East. The rally stalled at the 100-day moving average at 86.90 and has come off a bit after the over-3% rally. Momentum crossed over to the downside at the end of last week, from just under overbought. At the moment, technicals will take more of a back seat while focus stays on elevated tensions with Iran.
Key Levels
Resistance
86.90 — 100-day MA
89.40 — upper Bollinger Band
Support
82.55 — 20-day MA
79.48 — 50-day MA
78.45 — 200-day MA
BTC
BTC posted a bearish reversal on August 25th, then a bearish engulfing candle on August 28th. Both occurred with momentum in overbought territory, and the highs on both reversal candles were close enough to be considered a double top. Consolidation has been clearly defined over the past 1-2 weeks — watch for a break above 81,440 or a break below 76,870. With the two bearish reversal candles and momentum crossed over to the downside, the bias appears to be to the downside.
Key Levels
Resistance
81,440 — double top
86,000 — upper Bollinger Band
Support
76,870 — bottom of consolidation range
72,315 — 20-day MA
69,449 — 200-day MA
Week Ahead
Jobs Friday is the one to watch. First payrolls report since the ugly downward revision to last year's numbers, and it lands right after Warsh spent Jackson Hole arguing inflation hasn't cooled enough. A soft print reopens the doubt; a strong one locks in what the market already started pricing Friday.
FOMC is two weeks out now but every print between here and there gets read through that lens.
Iran stays the wildcard on crude, same as it's been for a month. One headline either way and the inflation story moves with it.
Market Notes
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Meridian Compass is brought to you by Mark Schaefer, a portfolio manager specializing in systematic global macro and FX strategies, with experience across institutional trading platforms, major banks, and hedge funds.
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