- 51% of all pending orders are to sell the US Dollar
- 69% of all open positions are long
- Immediate resistance lies at 111.26
- The closest support rests around 111.00
- Upcoming events: US Initial Jobless Claims, Fed Chair Yellen's Speech, US New Home Sales
Residential home sales plunged in February despite the promising start of the year. Contrary to experts' forecasts, total existing home sales slipped 3.7% over the month of February. Nevertheless, last month's results were still 5.4% higher than a year ago. According to the National Association of Realtors, the drop was mainly attributable to shortage of homes in the affordable price range. In February, the median house price soared 7.7%, which tags the 60th consecutive monthly increase. Realtors cannot satisfy the demand because more prosperous buyers quickly acquire newly listed houses and, thus, leave minimal choices to the remaining customers. Consequently, housing inventories went up 4.2% but still remained lower than a year ago.
The other data revealed that on the week ended March 17, US crude oil inventories surged 5.0M barrels, which significantly exceeds experts' forecasts. Moreover, the week highlighted the tenth increase in the last eleven weeks and presented a new record of 533.1M barrels.
Yellen's Speech due today
Among fundamental data the US Initial Jobless Claims and the New Home Sales are due. The Jobless Claims are a measure of the number of people filing first-time claims for state unemployment insurance. In other words, it provides a measure of strength in the labor market. A larger than expected number indicates weakness in this market, which influences the strength and direction of the US economy. The New Home Sales are an important measure of housing market conditions. House buyers spend money on furnishing and financing their homes so, as a result, the demand for goods, services and employees is stimulated. Fed Chair Yellen is also scheduled to speak today, her words are likely to outweigh the US fundamentals if relevant to rate hikes information is to be provided..USD/JPY attempts to post gains
As was anticipated, the US Dollar weakened against the Japanese Yen for the seventh day in a row yesterday, but with losses slightly exceeding expectations. The given pair closed below the monthly S1, managing to retain its position above 111.00, where demand could now trigger a rebound. Technical indicators in the daily timeframe are unable to confirm this possibility, but the weekly ones are giving bullish signals. Although, technically, the Buck should now experience a bullish correction, we should not rule out the possibility of bears continuing to push the exchange rate lower, with the nearest significant support being only around 110.00.Daily chart
The USD/JPY pair behaved in accordance with expectations on the hourly chart yesterday, being that it reconfirmed the descending channel's support line around the 111.00 major level. However, the pair has failed to find sufficient support for a recovery, at least at the current moment.
Hourly chart
There are 69% of all open positions being long today (previously 64%), while 51% of all pending orders are to sell the US Dollar.
Right now 60% of OANDA clients are bulls, compared to 63% on Wednesday. In the meantime, Saxo Bank clients retain a positive outlook towards the US Dollar, being that 64% of their open positions are now long and the remaining 36% are short.
Spreads (avg, pip) / Trading volume / Volatility
Traders are becoming increasingly bullish on the Dollar
According to the poll that gathered forecasts between February 23 and March 23, traders expect the US Dollar to appreciate to 115.09 yen in three months' time, while the forecast for March 31 was 117.66 yen. It is also worth noticing that 62% of all forecasts fall above 114 yen, which is above the current spot price. The majority of people voted expect the US Dollar to cost somewhere between 118.50 and 120.00 yen in three months, with 20% of the survey participants choosing this trading range. At the same time, the second most popular interval was the 106.50-108.00 one, with 14% of survey participants choosing it.