Major currencies still stuck in a lull for the most part this week

It’s looking fairly quiet in the handover from Asia to Europe today. But that has sort of been the theme for most of the week for FX, no? Once again, the dollar remains steady as price action has been rather sideways over the last few days. Here’s a snapshot of things currently:

While little changed, the immediate standout is USD/JPY after it fell from its highest levels since 1990 yesterday – albeit briefly. The pair hit a high of 151.97, before verbal intervention by Japan helped to keep things in check. And here we are now, holding around 151.30 levels.

With little to work with so far on the week, it would seem that traders are adopting a more cautious approach. If anything else, it highlights how data dependent this market is at the moment. It’s all about the headlines and we might only get something to scrutinise tomorrow.

There will be the US PCE price index as well as Fed chair Powell making an appearance. That being said, it comes during a time when most other markets are on holiday. That is not to mention month-end and quarter-end also being in play today and tomorrow.

But for now, there is still an air of calm prevailing but I’d perhaps call it haziness for the most part. It’s all about waiting for the next big data and the US jobs report next Friday is the one circled on everyone’s calendar at the moment.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.