USDJPY Technical Analysis

Fundamental
Overview

The USD was sold across the
board on Wednesday following the soft US CPI report. The data made the market to price back
in two cuts for this year. Later in the day though we got a bit more hawkish
than expected FOMC decision where the dot plot showed that the Fed sees just one cut for this
year despite the soft US CPI report.

This gave the greenback a
boost although Fed Chair Powell backpedalled on the projections making them a
bit less worrying as the central bank remains very data dependent. Moreover, the
US Dollar found further support yesterday as the market went into risk-off mode
for unclear reasons.

The JPY continues to lose
ground against the major currencies amid the general pickup in global growth
and overall positive risk sentiment, even if we get bouts of risk-off here and
there. It looks like there’s nothing at the moment that can support the Yen
except weaker US growth data.

Moreover, the BoJ today disappointed
the markets once again leaving bond purchases unchanged despite expectations of
a reduction. This was reversed in the press conference as BoJ
Governor Ueda said that they will begin tapering bond purchases immediately
after the July meeting and the size of the tapering will be substantial.

USDJPY
Technical Analysis – Daily Timeframe

On the daily chart, we can
see that USDJPY continues to drift higher as the pickup in global growth and
the positive risk sentiment continued to weigh on the Yen.

The buyers are still
targeting the intervention level at 160.00 and it’s hard to see a turnaround in
the bullish trend without weaker growth data from the US. The sellers will need
the price to break below the trendline
to gain more conviction and start looking for new lows with the 151.85 level as
the first target.

USDJPY Technical
Analysis – 4 hour Timeframe

On the 4 hour chart, we can
see that the price is trading inside a rising channel and got rejected from the
top trendline where we had also the key 158.00 handle for confluence.

This is where we can expect the sellers to pile in with a defined risk above
the resistance
to position for a drop back into the major trendline. The buyers, on the other
hand, will want to see the price breaking higher to increase the bullish bets into
the key160.00 handle.

USDJPY Technical Analysis – 1 hour Timeframe

On the 1 hour chart, we can
see that the price spiked higher today as the BoJ disappointed leaving bond
purchases unchanged despite expectations of a reduction. The gains though were
erased soon after as BoJ Governor Ueda delivered some hawkish comments. The buyers
stepped in around the recent minor resistance zone around the 157.30 level
where we had also the confluence of the 38.2% Fibonacci
retracement level.

If the price falls below
this zone, we can expect the buyers to lean on the lower bound of the channel
where they will also find the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level. The red lines
define the average
daily range for today, so it’s unlikely that we will see a breakout to the
upside today without a strong catalyst.

Upcoming
Catalysts

Today we conclude the week with the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment
survey where the data is expected to show an increase to 72.0 vs. 69.1 prior.

See the video below

This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at www.forexlive.com.