Australia’s ASX 200 dropped roughly 3% for the week — its worst weekly showing in about six months, according to multiple market trackers. The slide followed a broader Asia-Pacific retreat, as traders repriced the odds that not one but three of the world’s major central banks could tighten policy in the same stretch of days.

The sell-off was not confined to Australia. Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng both fell more than 1% over the week, while China’s Shanghai Composite slipped to a two-week low, according to multiple market data providers. Information-technology, consumer-discretionary and materials stocks bore the brunt of the Australian decline, while only utilities and energy shares finished the week higher, according to market-analysis firm IG — a split that shows how directly rate anxiety is now bleeding into equity positioning.

Three Central Banks, One Chaotic Week

The Fed’s decision lands first, on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. ET, after the Federal Open Market Committee left the federal funds rate at 3.50%-3.75% at its last meeting in July on a 9-3 vote. Traders now price roughly a 70% chance the Fed hikes to 3.75%-4.00%, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool — a dramatic shift from the near coin-flip odds seen just weeks ago, and the case has only strengthened since Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech last month, where he warned that “we must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective, clearly and at sufficient speed. Otherwise, we have work to do,” according to the Federal Reserve’s own transcript of the remarks.

The Bank of England follows on Thursday, but the setup is nearly the opposite. The BoE held its Bank Rate at 3.75% in July, and Governor Andrew Bailey has pushed back this week on the idea that a hike is all but locked in, arguing the market’s rate curve simply prices in a risk premium for a worse energy shock rather than a hidden Bank of England plan. Markets currently assign only around a 25% chance of a move on Thursday.

The Bank of Japan closes out the week on Thursday and Friday, and it is the most hawkish of the three by far. After lifting its policy rate to 1.00% in June — the highest since 1995 — the BoJ held steady in July with a single dissent in favor of an immediate move. Since then, Japan’s core inflation has accelerated to 1.8% year-over-year, its fastest pace since January, and Governor Kazuo Ueda has signaled the board will weigh a hike “at every meeting, including this one.” Traders are now pricing in roughly a 90% chance of a quarter-point increase to 1.25%.

Oil and Yields Are Doing the Fed’s Work For It

Behind all three decisions sits the same pressure: energy prices. WTI crude surged as much as 12.7% for the week to above $103 a barrel amid the widening Middle East conflict, before easing back toward the $100 mark by Friday’s close. That move, layered on top of an August producer-price report that showed wholesale inflation accelerating to 5.4% year-over-year, has been enough to push the 10-year Treasury yield to within a hair of 5% — a level tracked closely on the yield curve that investors use as an early warning gauge for the economy.

Wall Street’s own fear gauge is reflecting the strain: the CBOE Volatility Index jumped to nearly 18 for the week, up from about 14.5 previously, while gold slipped roughly 2.5% and bitcoin dropped more than 4% — a sign that the move higher in yields is pressuring even the assets typically used as inflation hedges, not just conventional stocks.

What It Means for Monday’s Open

US futures head into the new week digesting a mixed picture. Friday’s US session actually closed higher, with the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow all rallying after an in-line August inflation report, as Money Newsroom reported heading into the weekend — but that relief never made it to Asia, where markets had already priced in a weaker Wall Street lead from earlier in the week. The same rate anxiety that hit chip and tech stocks earlier this month is still very much alive, and one closely watched recession indicator still points to a soft landing rather than a hard one, even as the short end of the bond market gets more volatile.

What to Watch for the Open

  • Monday: Chinese new-yuan loan data, the first data point of a busy week for Beijing.
  • Tuesday: China’s industrial production, retail sales and house-price data, followed by UK unemployment figures.
  • Wednesday: US retail sales, UK inflation data, and the Fed’s rate decision at 2:00 p.m. ET.
  • Thursday: US housing starts and building permits, plus the Bank of England’s rate decision.
  • Thursday-Friday: The Bank of Japan’s two-day meeting concludes, with a decision expected midday Tokyo time.

With three major central banks on the calendar in the same 72-hour window, traders heading into Monday’s open have little room to look past any of them.