The surge of the USD/JPY continues, as the rate has made attempts to approach the 111.00 level.
Although, the most notable thing about the last two trading sessions is that this week the range of volatility has increased. Namely, the hourly candles are almost twice as big as usually.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released Non-Farm Employment Change data better-than-expected of 304K compared to forecast 165K. Note, that the Average Hourly Earnings and the Unemployment Rate were released at the same time with the Non-Farm Employment Change.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday: "The labor force participation rate, at 63.2 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 60.7 percent, changed little over the month; both measures were up by 0.5 percentage point over the year."
FOMC Meeting Minutes week
This week will have various data releases in various countries that will influence many currency exchange rates.The main event of the week will be the release of the Federal Open Markets Committee Meeting Minutes today. The FOMC Meeting Minutes will be published at 19:00 GMT. They are expected to cause an impact on all USD pairs.
On Thursday, EUR traders will pay attention to the Markit released European Services and Manufacturing PMIs. The German release at 08:30 GMT is the most important.
Later on during the same day the US Durable Goods Orders and Core Durable Goods Orders will be published.
The week will end with the Canadian Core Retail Sales at 13:30 GMT on Friday.
All of these events are scheduled to be covered by Dukascopy Analytics on our Dukascopy Webinars YouTube channel. The streams start ten minutes before the data release.
For more information watch the weekly Calendar Analysis stream recording.
USD/JPY short term daily review
The rate has continued to trade in the borders of an ascending channel, which is best observed on the hourly candle chart.In general, the pair is set to next reach for the resistance of a monthly pivot point at the 110.96 level. This level will work together with the psychological resistance provided by the 111.00 mark.
The surge might begin as soon as the 55 and 100-hour simple moving averages catch up from below and strengthen the 61.80% Fibonacci retracement level at the 110.77 level.
Hourly Chart
On the daily chart, the long term target of the 111.00 has been reached. Namely, the pair reached above it and retraced back down to the 55-day SMA.In general, by looking at the daily chart it can be observed that the pair is expected to trade sideways, as it has ended an upwards aimed wave.
In addition, an ascending pattern has been added to the chart and is being used to show the surge of the USD/JPY of 2019.
Daily chart
Since Monday, the Swiss Foreign Exchange sentiment indicated that 56% of all the open position volume was short on the USD/JPY. It had decreased to 55% on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, in the 100-pip range around the pair trader set up pending orders were set to sell the pair in 55% of cases.
It can be concluded that traders have spotted the end of the wave on the daily chart and have started to short the USD/JPY. Moreover, additional short positions would be opened by the pending sell orders.