- The number of orders to acquire the Buck edged down from 66 to 63%
- Bullish traders' sentiment returned to its Monday's level of 72%
- Immediate resistance lies at 111.26
- The closest support rests at 110.35
- Upcoming events: US Pending Home Sales, US Crude Oil Inventories
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index increased significantly despite experts' pessimistic forecasts. In March, it gained 8% and reached 125.6, which is the highest value since December 2000. Therefore, the number of consumers who evaluated business conditions as "good" rose from 28.3% to 32.2%. Moreover, the number of consumers who believed that there was "enough" job offers in the market also climbed from 26.9% to 31.7%. Accordingly, the number people who evaluated business conditions as "bad" decreased from 13.4% to 12.9%. In addition, the number of people who were experiencing "difficulties" finding a job slightly diminished from 19.9% to 19.5%.
Altogether, this mean that consumers believe that the current economic conditions have improved and that they are ready to increase their spending and investments. This also suggests that people are more optimistic about the near-term economic situation. For instance, the number of consumers who suggested that business conditions would improve even more in the next six months soared from 23.9% to 27.1%. At the same time, the number of consumers who suggested that more jobs would be created in the next six months also nudged from 20.9% to 24.8%.
US Pending Home Sales is the only relevant event today
Wednesday is similar to Monday, as there are barely any events that could have an impact on the USD/JPY pair. The US Pending Home Sales will be the only relevant data release. It is a leading indicator of trends of the housing market in the US. It captures residential housing contract activity of existing single-family homes. As the housing market is considered as a sensitive factor to the US economy, it generates some volatility for the USD.USD/JPY anchored around 111.00
After a two-week decline the USD/JPY currency pair managed to breach the descending channel's support line yesterday, also reacquiring the 111.00 mark. Nevertheless, the rally was stopped by the monthly S1, which could still cause bears to push the exchange rate lower today. Moreover, technical indicators remain in favour of the negative outcome and the Bollinger bands suggest a close in the red zone today is likely. The nearest support is the weekly S1 at 110.35, but a drop that low is doubtful, with the 110.60 level seen as the lowest intraday closing point.Daily chart
As it was mentioned yesterday, a breakout from the descending channel on the hourly chart does not imply the trend is about to fully change and become bullish. The USD/JPY pair is still expected to struggle to overcome the 200-hour SMA, followed with an eventual retest of the 109.00/108.50 area, where potentially a support could trigger USD-buying again.
Hourly chart
Bullish traders' sentiment returned to its Monday's level of 72% (previously 71%). At the same time, the number of orders to acquire the Buck edged down from 66 to 63%.
Right now 63% of OANDA clients are bulls, unchanged since Tuesday. In the meantime, Saxo Bank clients retain a positive outlook towards the US Dollar, being that 68% of their open positions are now long and the remaining 32% 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 29 and March 29, traders expect the US Dollar to appreciate to 114.95 yen in three months' time, while the forecast for March 31 was 117.66 yen. It is also worth noticing that 60% 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 intervals were the 106.50-108.00 and the 115.50-117.00 ones, with 14% of survey participants choosing each of them.