The Japanese yen was the strongest performing currency this week, rising about 4% against the US dollar, with USD/JPY plunging below 134 to levels not seen since mid-August.
Two favourable fundamental developments have fueled the yen's strength:
a) Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that US interest rates might be hiked more slowly starting in December, thus effectively anticipating a 50 basis point raise. On top of that, the latest stream of US data signalled that economic activity is slowing in this quarter pushing speculators to trim expectation for Fed interest rates in 2023. The yield on the US 10-year note dropped by another 15 basis points to 3.52% this week, putting it on course to notch its fourth consecutive week of declines.
b) Asahi Noguchi, a Bank of Japan board member, said the central bank might "pre-emptively" withdraw monetary stimulus if trend inflation surpasses 2% for a long time.
Technically, we have also observed pivotal signals that may portend the end of the dominant bullish trend and the beginning of a bearish one.
Since its October highs (151.95), the pair has now dropped 12%, breaching both the 50 and 200 day moving averages as well as major Fibonacci retracement levels such as 23.6% (142.81) and 38.2% (137.19). The RSI has reached highly oversold levels not seen since March 2020, meaning that the bearish price action was rather violent.
What can we expect from here?
A critical support zone is positioned between 130.3 and 132.65. If USD/JPY breaks below 132, it would have retraced 50% of its bullish expansion in 2022, a signal that might confirm the bearish trend reversal. The 130.3 represents the lows from August, which is another technical milestone.
The US NFPs from today and the CPI due out on December 13 constitute the bullish risk event for the USD/JPY and might influence the Fed's tone at the FOMC meeting on December 14. Higher-than-expected NFPs or CPI data might rekindle dollar bulls and drive US yields higher on anticipation of a hawkish Fed, resulting in USD/JPY dip buying and a possible retest of 140 levels.