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GBP/JPY breaches 197.00 for the first time since 2008

  • GBP/JPY continues to grind into multi-year highs.
  • Japanese Yen continues to erode across the board.
  • BoJ reaffirms monetary policy stance, markets pummel JPY.

GBP/JPY touched chart territory above 197.00 for the first time since September of 2008 as markets meet the Bank of Japan (BoJ) head-on and batter the Yen into decades-long lows. 

The BoJ maintained its hyper-easy monetary policy, prompting a broad-market Yen selloff. The Japanese central bank will resume large-scale Japanese government bond purchasing, and BoJ Governor Kazuo Ueda paid lip service with little action on Yen exchange rates, inflation, and interest rate forward guidance in a broadly disappointing BoJ showing.

Coming up next week, a light economic calendar from the UK, and an update on Japan’s Retail Sales figures slated for early Tuesday. Retail Trade in Japan is expected to ease to 2.2% growth for the year ended in March, down from the previous period’s 4.6%.

GBP/JPY technical outlook

With the pair trading into 16-year highs, the Guppy is breaking into extremely bullish chart territory above the 197.00 handle. The GBP/JPY is up 10.2% from 2024’s early bounce from the 200-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) near 180.00.

The Guppy is set for a fourth consecutive month-on-month gain, and the pair is up over 50% from 2020 lows set near 130.00. 

GBP/JPY daily chart

Author

Joshua Gibson

Joshua joins the FXStreet team as an Economics and Finance double major from Vancouver Island University with twelve years' experience as an independent trader focusing on technical analysis.

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