© Dukascopy Bank SA
During the trading week ended October 17, the USD/JPY pair was developing in a rather calm manner; however, some fundamental news from the United States was able to influence the pair's movements. Due to Bank Holidays both in Japan and the US, the currency cross traded sideways for the most part of first two days of the last week. However, it was considerably influenced by data on US retail sales on Wednesday, as they were released worse than predicted by the majority of analysts. On this news, the American currency lost around 150 pips and fell below the monthly S1 support line at 105.89. It continued to trade at these levels for next 24 hours, while better than expected US fundamentals on industrial production and unemployment claims renewed the pair's bullish tendency. Still, with Monday's market opening level of 107.33, the pair was not able to gain any weekly value and closed at 106.91 back on October 17. Traders, however, were undecided on pair's perspectives, as 53% of all votes were bullish and 47% bearish.
The present working week is not supposed to be rich on Japanese data either, as among important news from this country, traders can wait for trade balance on Wednesday and flash manufacturing PMI data on Thursday, while all industries activity has already been published on Tuesday and used to be better than forecasted. At the same time, USD-traders can look at core inflation statistics on Wednesday, fresh unemployment claims a day later and new home sales on Friday. In addition to that, Energy Information Administration will publish the change in crude oil inventories on October 22. Dukascopy traders, in turn, became more bearish on USD/JPY currency pair, as now almost 59% believe in negative development, while the median expectation for October 24 is located around the 107 important level.
© Dukascopy Bank SA