USDJPY Long-Term Short, Resistance Range Too Strong to Surpass
The conversation on the Japanese yen is as much about the US economy as much as it is about the Japanese economy. This is mainly due to the fact that the Japanese yen acts as a safe haven asset during times of downward volatility, even if that volatility stems from Japan such as the natural and nuclear disasters that rocked the archipelago nation in 2011. Moreover, while the more common tools of prediction like ordinary least squared models can provide a bit of accuracy in price action, it clearly lacks a precise target. This is especially the case given technical resistance and support levels even though the Pearson’s R statistic suggests a high degree of model fitness.
Nonetheless, the macroeconomic trends suggest that while there is a 95 percent probability that price action moves to a range of 111.705 and 112.157 by the end of April, observers should not be surprised if price action moves towards the lower end of the 95 percent confidence interval towards a range of 109.595 and 109.771. These primarily include the continued downgrading of global economic growth by the EU, the IMF, the OCED, and the World Bank. Truly, there is now a global growth slowdown of the major world economies including the EU, China, and increasingly the United States.
In the United States, the USD side of USDJPY, the FOMC will release its meeting minutes later in the day explaining to investors why the Fed made a 180 turn from hawkish monetary policy to dovishness which inspired traders during the day this policy position came out to retreat from equity markets. This was mainly due to the fact that investors believed the FOMC knew something they didn’t, specifically that the FOMC had data pointing to an increase in a US slowdown (a negative for USDJPY). We will find out the degree in which this is true later. While CPI figures that came out this morning were quite promising coming in at 2 percent, sentiment figures from the University of Michigan come out on Friday which are forecasted to be worse than last month’s figures.
Aside from a slowdown in global growth and the potential of a recession in the upcoming year, there are many more overarching thematic trends in the global economy that would suggest the Japanese yen may in the longer-term become stronger against the US dollar. This includes primarily the uncertainty surrounding Brexit and the desire of US President Donald Trump to continue his trade wars with the world. Both of these issues, if not managed properly by central figures, could spiral out of control and have a dramatic negative effect on global markets potentially spiraling into something more than what they intrinsically inherent.
Overall, there are many more reasons to be bearish than what there are to be bullish on USDJPY. This trend could reverse as the world could currently merely be in a trough of a global growth slowdown. However, these trends tend to not reverse as quickly as other trends such as forex price action. Because of this, my long-term view remains the same from months prior which is primarily that observers should be careful this late in the cycle. Foreign exchange markets will be some of the first to react to any realization of volatility while equities tend to be more knee-jerk reactionary. Since this is the case, it will remain key to keep an eye on safe haven assets such as USDJPY in order to maintain a finger on the pulse of global financial markets.
Nonetheless, the macroeconomic trends suggest that while there is a 95 percent probability that price action moves to a range of 111.705 and 112.157 by the end of April, observers should not be surprised if price action moves towards the lower end of the 95 percent confidence interval towards a range of 109.595 and 109.771. These primarily include the continued downgrading of global economic growth by the EU, the IMF, the OCED, and the World Bank. Truly, there is now a global growth slowdown of the major world economies including the EU, China, and increasingly the United States.
In the United States, the USD side of USDJPY, the FOMC will release its meeting minutes later in the day explaining to investors why the Fed made a 180 turn from hawkish monetary policy to dovishness which inspired traders during the day this policy position came out to retreat from equity markets. This was mainly due to the fact that investors believed the FOMC knew something they didn’t, specifically that the FOMC had data pointing to an increase in a US slowdown (a negative for USDJPY). We will find out the degree in which this is true later. While CPI figures that came out this morning were quite promising coming in at 2 percent, sentiment figures from the University of Michigan come out on Friday which are forecasted to be worse than last month’s figures.
Aside from a slowdown in global growth and the potential of a recession in the upcoming year, there are many more overarching thematic trends in the global economy that would suggest the Japanese yen may in the longer-term become stronger against the US dollar. This includes primarily the uncertainty surrounding Brexit and the desire of US President Donald Trump to continue his trade wars with the world. Both of these issues, if not managed properly by central figures, could spiral out of control and have a dramatic negative effect on global markets potentially spiraling into something more than what they intrinsically inherent.
Overall, there are many more reasons to be bearish than what there are to be bullish on USDJPY. This trend could reverse as the world could currently merely be in a trough of a global growth slowdown. However, these trends tend to not reverse as quickly as other trends such as forex price action. Because of this, my long-term view remains the same from months prior which is primarily that observers should be careful this late in the cycle. Foreign exchange markets will be some of the first to react to any realization of volatility while equities tend to be more knee-jerk reactionary. Since this is the case, it will remain key to keep an eye on safe haven assets such as USDJPY in order to maintain a finger on the pulse of global financial markets.