USD/JPY has been sold off heavily overnight on a broad based run on the greenback after Yellen’s speech in New York. She was followed up by questions from economists and was able to clarify that indeed the Fed will not be able to raise rates as fast as they had previously anticipated.
The speech and the outcome was a surprise to markets that had been expecting a dovish tone, but her rhetoric was the most dovish heard since global concerns had been mentioned in the FOMC’s statements of previous meetings.
Yellen: Appropriate for Fed to proceed cautiously with rate hike
More local to the Yen, yesterday’s data in retail sales was a big miss fell a whopping 2.3% in February. at the same time, the unemployment rate rose to 3.3% and surpassed the expectations of 3.2%. PM Abe said yesterday that he is not planning to delay the sales tax in 2017. Today, industrial production was another weight to the ankle of the Yen, arriving worse than expected for Feb and dropped the most since 2011.
USD/JPY levels
Having left the pivot for dust, at 113.43, there is heavy bearish tone has come about on the short term sticks as a result of the price action following Yellen’s comments today with a test of the 4hr 50 sma at 112.52. However, there is some consolidation taking place in Tokyo currently. “In the 4 hours chart, the price has extended below its 100 and 200 SMAs, whilst the technical indicators are currently crossing below their mid-lines almost vertically, indicating further slides are yet to be seen,” explained Valeria Bednarik, chief analyst at FXStreet. The next downside target is 112.00 and 17th March high.
(Market News Provided by FXstreet)