© Dukascopy Bank SA
During March 23-27 trading week, the USD/JPY currency cross performed in a strong bearish trend, but the pair posted some loses by the end of the week. This currency pair is usually driven by American statistical data and the last week was not an exception. On March 23, the pair developed in a bullish manner, and started the week on 120.08 level. Nevertheless, on Thursday, the Dollar dropped to a one-month low, against the Yen, after unexpectedly weak US economic reports, which clouded the outlook for the first quarter growth. Orders for core capital goods, a general indicator of private-sector business investment, decreased 1.4%, showing the sixth consecutively monthly decline. The next day, the Greenback was almost unchanged against the Yen, due to mixed economic reports from Japan and as optimism sparked by Thursday's upbeat US jobless claims data began to subside. According, to the Japanese official data, household spending rose 0.8% in February, exceeding expectations for a 0.5% gain, after a 0.3% fall in February. Moreover, a separate report showed, that the consumer price inflation in Japan rose at an annualized rate of 2.0% in February, compared to expectations for 2.1% and down from 2.2% in January. However, the pair round up the week at 119.16 level.
The present trading week experienced some minor changes in market preferences, as almost 53% from all votes are still bullish, underlying a slight improvement in the sentiment for US Dollar. In general, we can interpret this distribution between bullish and bearish votes as neutral. This week will be rich on US data, including nonfarm payrolls report, and data on manufacturing activity on Wednesday. Japan in turn, is going to publish the results of the Tankan manufacturing and non-manufacturing indexes on the same day.
© Dukascopy Bank SA