© Dukascopy bank SA
Last week ended on April 4, the third most popular pair on the foreign exchange market, showed a rather stabile tendency than several weeks before. The Yen weakened further on Monday, after Japan's industrial production contracted in February for the first time in three months. The 3.4% decline was much sharper than expected, as businesses are reluctant to commit to capital investment and expand operations in the face of weak household spending. The next day, the Yen depreciated slightly, against the Greenback, since initial wages data was delayed due to calculation issue. The Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has delayed Tuesday's release of February wages data at least for a few days, in order to fix an error found in the statistical revision of the most recent and historical data. According to the officials, the delay will not affect the release of revised February data on April 17 and preliminary March data on May 1. Meanwhile, the Dollar slipped lower against the Yen on Wednesday, as data pointing the weak business sentiment in Japan pressured equities lower, shoring up demand for the safe-have yen. Nevertheless, the Greenback, dropped to one-week lows, to 118.993 level on Friday, after a surprisingly weak US jobs report for March.
This week the pair's sentiment changed considerably, as now 80% of all votes are bearish on the cross. The average expectation for April 10 stays around the 1.186 level. Upcoming key events from Japan include benchmark interest rate announcement and current account data. Also, there will be a closely watched press conference following the rate publication. Later on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve is to publish the minutes of its March meeting. Meanwhile, the US is to round up the week with a report on import prices.
© Dukascopy bank SA