- SWFX market sentiment is 66% bullish
- Pending orders in the 100-pip range are 52% to SELL
- US employment data
The assumption that the decline of the US Dollar against the Japanese Yen has ended has been confirmed by another event. The upper trend line of the long term channel down pattern has been broken. Instead a new ascending pattern has been marked.
The US private sector created 235K jobs in the reported month, expanding at a slightly slower pace than in January.
At the same time, US non-farm employment change number still surpassed the February's forecast. Ahu Yildirmaz, the Vice President and Co-head of the ADP Research Institute, said that the US labour market is keeping its growth rate uninterrupted and that persistent gains have been seen in industries related to leisure, hospitality and retail.
Thank God it's Friday
Friday has come. The employment data that was expected for the whole week is set to be released. Remember to join Dukascopy webinar platform to see the live coverage of the release.
The official US employment data package is set to be published at 13:30 GMT. The data will consist of the US Average Hourly Earnings, Non-Farm Employment Change and the Unemployment Rate.
Meanwhile, remember that the most notable event, which is set to affect the USD/JPY pair, has occurred. Namely, the Bank of Japan's Policy Rate was decided to not be changed at 2:46 GMT.
USD/JPY shoots up to 107.00
The global strength of the US Dollar put upward pressure on the USD/JPY exchange rate. The pair gained 86 pips during Thursday's trading session, thus dashing through the monthly PP, the 200-hour SMA and the upper boundary of the senior channel.The strong two-day surge has sent technical indicators near the overbought region, so, even if some advances occur during this session, the Greenback should not exceed the 107.20 mark.
It is more likely that a bearish correction prevails in the market today and sends the pair towards the combined support of the 55– and 100-hour SMAs at 106.00.
The US employment data release could alter the market sentiment and guide the pair's direction during the remaining hours of this trading week.
Hourly Chart
There have been new developments in regards to the massive scale channel down pattern. Namely, after looking closely at the way the reference points for the most dominant channel they were adjusted to the exact high levels of the hourly candles. Meanwhile, the reference for the lower trend line was experimented with.
As a result of the experiment, it was discovered that the lower trend line of the most dominant channel has been reached. This indicates that the initial decline of the US Dollar against the Yen in the first months of 2018 has ended.
The above discovery was made on Thursday. Since then the upper trend line of the named channel down pattern has been pierced.
Daily chart
SWFX traders are still on the long side, as 66% of open positions were bullish during the morning hours. However, trader set up orders remain bullish, as 57% of trader set up orders were to buy the US Dollar in favour to the Japanese Yen.
Meanwhile, the market sentiment of OANDA traders remains strongly bullish with 73% long positions. In addition, Saxo bank traders are 55% bullish in regards to this pair.
Spreads (avg, pip) / Trading volume / Volatility