Since the middle of Wednesday's GMT trading hours, the USD/JPY has traded near the 104.00 level. Namely, the pair has been trading between the 103.80 and 104.20 levels.
In the meantime, the pair had been approached by the 55 and 100-hour simple moving averages.
Economic Calendar
On Thursday, at 13:30 GMT, expect the weekly US Unemployment Claims. Despite the attention this release gets, we do not recommend monitoring it closely. The USD/JPY has moved only 3.6 to 8.1 pips on the release since December 10.
The week will end with the publication of the US Retail Sales and US Core Retail Sales at 13:30 GMT. In November and December, these data sets caused an increase of volatility above the average.
Click on the link below to find out more about the data releases of this and other currency exchange rates.
USD/JPY short-term daily review
It is likely that the exchange rate could gain support from the 55– and 100-hour moving averages near 103.95 and trade upwards in the nearest future. Note that the nearest resistance level—the weekly R1, is located at 104.53.In the meantime, it is unlikely that bears could prevail in the market, and the currency pair could decline below 103.56 due to the support formed by the weekly PP and the 200-hour SMA.
Hourly Chart
On the daily candle chart, the rate is trading near the 55-day simple moving average, which was broken on Monday.
Meanwhile, take into account the 100-day simple moving average, the November high levels and the weekly R1 simple moving average. These levels are located from 104.53 to 104.70.
Daily chart
On Wednesday, on the Swiss Foreign Exchange around 54% of volume was in long positions.
At mid-day on Thursday, the sentiment was 56% long.
Meanwhile, trader set up pending orders in the 100-pip range around the rate were 58% to sell.
Previously, the orders were 54% to sell.