- The share of purchase orders slid one percentage point to 55%
- Bullish SWFX sentiment returned to its Monday's level of 54%
- Closest resistance is located at 124.14, the 2007 high
- From below the price is supported by the weekly PP at 123.38
- 16% of traders assume the US Dollar will cost between 123 and 124.5 yen in three months
- Upcoming events today: US Trade Balance, US Markit Services PMI, US ADP Non-farm payrolls, US ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI, US Fed's Beige Book, US Crude Oil Inventories
The ISM manufacturing index rose to 52.8 last month from 51.5 in April, the data showed earlier this week. The economy will likely rely on greater manufacturing sector output to recover after a soft start to 2015. During the first three months of the year, the economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.7%. Economists expect annualized growth to rebound to roughly 2% in the second quarter of this year.
Sean Yokota, head of Asia Strategy at SEB, said that "if you look at Japan's public debt, which is about 243% of GDP, which is also one of the largest in the world." The economist comments that the BoJ needs to get the debt down before all the baby boomers retire, so they need to go through some fiscal consolidation, whether through tax hikes or through spending cuts. He also mentioned that such measures put Japan into recession, but he thinks that it also gave a bit of confidence to people; that this time when you increase the taxes, it does hit you short-term, but you can come out of the recession. Moreover, the Japanese economy is still doing relatively O.K. and the equity markets are still pretty high.
Craig Erlam, Senior Market Analyst at OANDA, commenting on the prospects of the Fed raising interest rates this year, said that there is no real difference between the Fed raising rates either in June or in September. In his opinion September just seems more likely, because it gives the Fed more time to prepare for the hike. Craig also does not see the immediate necessity for a rate hike in September, but thinks that "there is just a number of policymakers who want to test the water with the first hike, see how the markets react, how economy holds up."
US ADP Non-Farm Payrolls
There will be no significant data releases concerning the Japanese economy today, but later in the day there will be a data release on the ADP Non-Farm payrolls in the US. The payrolls have shown worse-than-expected figures in the past four months, so a rebound is likely to finally happen. According to the forecast, the number of employed people should increase from 169k to 198k. If the data manages to meet the expectation, it will result in a significant boost to the US Dollar, thus pressuring down the Japanese Yen.
Marcel Thieliant, economist from Capital Economics, forecasts USD/JPY to be at 130.00 by the end of the second quarter. The analyst commented that he expects the BoJ to step up the pace of easing at the end of this month. "This is obviously not what other economists expect, if that happens, we will probably see a strong drop in the Yen against the Dollar and against other major currencies," Thieliant said.
USD/JPY takes another crack at 125
In spite of all expectations, the USD/JPY currency pair declined yesterday. The worse-than-expected US fundamental data weighed on the US Dollar, forcing it to lose ground and fall back under the 2007 high. However, this was likely just a setback in the Greenback's bullish trend, as the Buck is expected to rebound today. The 2007 high is to be left behind once more, but the nearest resistance rests beyond hand's reach. The 125 psychological level is the target, while technical indicators are now giving bullish signals, bolstering the positive outcome.
Daily chart
Monday's attempts of the Greenback to appreciate against the Yen were in vain, as the pair erased those gains on Tuesday. The US Dollar has fallen back under the trend-line and even under the 2007 high. The exchange rate is still close to this level and is likely to rise by the end of the day.
Hourly chart
Bulls still prevailing over bears
Bullish SWFX sentiment returned to its Monday's level of 54%, whereas the share of purchase orders slid one percentage point to 55%.
The market participants at other brokers appear to be more bullish on USD/JPY, except for OANDA traders; their bullish sentiment dropped down to 52%. Meanwhile, SAXO Bank traders are even more optimistic towards the Greenback, being that 61% of their positions are long.
Spreads (avg, pip) / Trading volume / Volatility
16% of traders assume the US Dollar will cost between 123 and 124.5 yen in three months
The mean forecast for September 3 is 121.79, however, the majority (65%) still expect the US Dollar to cost more than 120 yen within a three-month period. The most popular price range remains between 123.00 and 124.50 yen. The second most popular choices are divided between 115.50-117.00, 124.50-126.00 and 126.00-127.50, selected by 12% of the surveyed each.
This week Dukascopy Community members predict the pair advance further, as bullish side of the votes picked up to 83.3%, meaning that the appreciation of the Japanese currency will continue.
With the vast majority of traders being long the USD/JPY, there are those who oppose the opinion of the many. A trader with a bearish perspective, defka, assumes the given currency pair will decline, as it "broke through multi-month highs, thus a pullback could drive it back down." One of the bullish traders, rokasltu, suggests that last week showed that USD/JPY still has upside potential", therefore he expects the US Dollar to settle above the 125 mark by the end of the week.