With risk sentiment still being slightly positive today, the earlier push for USD/JPY failed to materialize into anything significant as we begin European morning trade. The US treasury yields are also higher now, with 10-year yields up over 4 bps to 3.165% and that will help to prop up USD/JPY as we get things going on the session.

The breakout attempt above 135.00 last week failed to hold earlier but the fact that price action remained sticky around 134.50 to 135.00 showed that buyers were not throwing in the towel just yet. As things stand, perhaps both buyers and sellers will be looking for some catalyst or trigger to decide the next move. Buyers eventually started taking charge and they have pushed to 135.30s. We decided to open a buy signal a while ago, continuing our bullish bias for this pair.

USD/JPY H4 Chart – The 50 SMA Holding As Support

Buyers taking charge once again

The Fed chairman Jerome Powell has so far repeated much of what he said on Tuesday last week, but I wanted to highlight the headline comment because it fits in with the price action in the market today as the focus shifts to growth.

• Intention is a soft landing but the path has gotten more and more challenging
• There is a problem with longer-term housing supply
• Housing market is slowing down to some extent now due to higher mortgage rates

For trading this week, it seems like a lot will revolve around risk sentiment as central bank talk will be the other only notable event on the agenda. In terms of data releases, we’ll have US durable goods orders later today before switching the focus to euro area inflation figures in the days ahead.

USD/JPY Live Chart