USD/JPY dribbles lower, returns back to recent consolidation range

The fall today also sees sellers resume near-term control, with a push below its 100 and 200-hour moving averages as well. The former is at 147.67 while the latter is at 147.28. Hence, the drop now back towards near 146.00 sees sellers back in charge of the near-term bias. Going back to the daily chart, the pair looks poised for another decent shove lower after the Friday move.

The drop coincides with a rejection at the 38.2 Fib retracement level of the swing lower in July at 149.42. So, there’s that to argue from a technical perspective.

The pair also continues to move in lockstep with Treasury yields for the most part, though 10-year yields are not quite doing as much so far today.

The only news out of Japan is the one on the LDP leadership election date here. Besides that, some selling in the Nikkei could be playing some part in the flows. The index is down 1.7% currently ahead of the final hour of trading.

Going back to USD/JPY, the pair had previously sit in a bit of a consolidation range recently in the past week or so. That seen between 146.00 to 148.00 mostly, before the jump higher last Thursday.

So, we’re moving back into that range again now and we’ll see if sellers will have any appetite to chase further downside towards 145.00. That will be a crucial psychological level to any downside momentum.

For now, traders will have to look to themselves mostly for any catalysts. Fedspeak is the main thing to watch in trading this week and we might not get anything too noteworthy until Thursday itself.

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