The only good thing about some of Friday’s price action in the US Treasury market is that it happened on a Friday. The fact that the moves in government bond and currency markets continued to defy America’s traditional “safe haven” role confronts policymakers with difficult questions. These become more pressing as the probability of a damaging market malfunction increases to an uncomfortable level.

The unsettling trading in financial markets goes well beyond pronounced worries about the US economic outlook, which were well captured in the latest University of Michigan survey data. US consumer sentiment has tumbled to the second-weakest reading on record while respondents expect prices to rise 6.7% in the coming year, the highest since 1981, the report showed. Markets are also responding to the intensification of two games of chicken — between China and the US on tariffs and between the administration and the Federal Reserve on possible market circuit breakers, should they be needed.