Key Points
- The US Dollar after trading as high as 115.37 against the Japanese yen found sellers and corrected lower.
- The USDJPY pair later found support near a bullish trend line at 114.25 on the hourly chart.
- Today, the Japanese Retail Trade report was released by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
- The result was on the lower side, as there was change of +0.6% in Dec 2016, compared with the +1.3% forecast.
USDJPY Technical Analysis
The US Dollar remained in an uptrend against the Japanese yen. It recently traded close to 115.40 from there a correction was started. The correction wave extended towards the 114.25 support where the USDJPY pair found a bullish trend line on the hourly chart.
The pair is now back above the 21 hourly simple moving average at 114.65, and it looks like the pair may continue to move higher.
The next major resistance on the upside is near 115.00. Above it, the last swing high at 115.30-115.40 may act as a hurdle and prevent further gains.
Japanese Retail Trade
Today, the Japanese Retail Trade, which captures the aggregate sales made through a business location was released by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The market was looking for a change of +1.3% in Dec 2016, compared with the same month a year ago.
However, the result was on the lower side, as there was change of +0.6% in Dec 2016. When we have a look at the monthly change, there was a decline of 1.7% in Dec 2016, which was disappointing considering that there was a rise of 0.2% last time. The result was not as per the forecast, which weighed on the Japanese yen.
Overall, the US Dollar may gain further, and move back towards the 115.00 level vs the Japanese yen in the short term.
