USD/JPY drops below 111.50 as greenback weakens on falling T-bond yields

• The 10-year T-bond yield drops to its lowest level since early January.
• US Dollar Index erases daily gains, retreats to mid-96s.
• Wall Street trades mixed.

After spending the majority of the day moving sideways in the 111.60-111.80 region, the USD/JPY pair came under a renewed pressure in the last hour and fell to its lowest level of the day at 111.40. At the moment, the pair is trading a couple of pips above that level, losing 0.25% on a daily basis.

Despite the upbeat consumer confidence data from the U.S., the greenback lost its traction amid falling Treasury bond yields. With a daily loss of nearly 2%, the yield on the 10-year T-bond slumped to its lowest level since the first week of January and dragged the US Dollar Index to 96.50 area from the daily highs. As of writing, the DXY was down 0.2% at 96.53.

The University of Michigan in its preliminary Consumer Sentiment Survey reported that the Confidence Index improved to 97.8 in March from 93.8 in February. Other data from the U.S. revealed that industrial production expanded by 0.1% in February to fall short of the market expectation of 0.4%.

Despite the sharp fall in T-bond yields, Wall Street trades mixed in the day to hint at a neutral sentiment with the financial-heavy Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 0.15 and the Nasdaq Composite gaining more than 0.6%.

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