USD/JPY hangs near 1-week lows, just below mid-109.00s
| • The USD held on the defensive despite a goodish bounce in the US bond yields.
• Escalating US-China trade tensions continue to underpin JPY’s safe-haven demand.
• Traders now look forward to the US durable goods orders for some fresh impetus.
The USD/JPY pair quickly reversed an Asian session uptick to an intraday high level of 109.75 and has now slipped back to one-week lows set in the previous session.
A slump in the US Treasury bond yields, falling to its lowest level since October 2017 following the release of dismal US Markit PMIs, prompted some agressive USD long-unwinding trade during the US session on Thursday.
This coupled with a fresh wave of global risk aversion trade - amid rising fears over a full-blown US-China trade war, provided a strong boost to the Japanese Yen's safe-haven status and exerted some heavy pressure on the major.
The pair added to Wednesday's modest pullback from two-week highs touched earlier this week and tumbled to an intraday low level of 109.46, resulting into a fall of over 120-pips in the past two trading session.
The US Dollar held on the defensive and failed to gain any respite from a goodish rebound in the US bond yields, with traders also shrugging off Friday's disappointing release of all industries activity report from Japan.
It would now be interesting to see if the pair is able to attract any buying interest at lower levels or the current pullback marks the resumption of the recent bearish trend from the yearly high level of 112.40 set late-April.
Market participants now look forward to the US economic docket - highlighting the release of durable goods order data later during the early North-American session, in order to grab some short-term trading opportunities.
Technical levels to watch
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