GBP/JPY flattens on Thursday with Tokyo CPI inflation ahead

The GBP/JPY trimmed into median bids with Japanese inflation preview on Friday.
UK sees GfK Consumer Confidence to end the trading week.
Guppy entrenched in rangebound pattern.

Joshua Gibson FXStreet

The GBP/JPY strung along the midrange on Thursday, trading on the low side of the 188.00 handle as markets gear up for Japan’s Tokyo Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation print early Friday.

It was a light week on the economic calendar for the Pound Sterling (GBP), but Wednesday’s UK Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) figures broadly came in above expectations, helping to keep the GBP bid heading into the back half of the trading week.

Japan’s Tokyo CPI inflation print on Friday is expected to moderate for January, with the Core Tokyo CPI forecast to tick down to 1.9% from 2.1% for the year through January as Japanese inflation continues to slow from last January’s YoY peak of 4.3%.

Headline YoY Tokyo CPI in January last printed at 2.4%, with Core-Core Tokyo CPI (headline inflation less fresh food and energy prices) likewise expected to come down from the previous period’s 3.5%.

On the UK side, GfK Consumer Confidence in January is expected to tick up slightly to -21 from December’s -22.

Next week sees mostly mid-tier data for both the UK and Japan, but traders will be gearing up for the Bank of England’s (BoE) next showing slated for next Thursday.

GBP/JPY Technical Outlook

GBP/JPY continues to be plagued by a sideways grind on the intraday charts as bids push into the midrange as the 200-hour Simple Moving Average (SMA) drifts into 187.50, putting a technical floor underneath near-term consolidation.

The pair is up over 5% from the last significant pullback into 178.74 at the 200-day SMA in early 2024, but bullish momentum has fully drained out of the pair as middling candles pile up at familiar highs.

GBP/JPY Hourly Chart

GBP/JPY Daily Chart

GBP/JPY

Overview
Today last price	187.63
Today Daily Change	-0.08
Today Daily Change %	-0.04
Today daily open	187.71

Trends
Daily SMA20	184.53
Daily SMA50	184.25
Daily SMA100	183.65
Daily SMA200	180.99

Levels
Previous Daily High	188.48
Previous Daily Low	187.12
Previous Weekly High	188.94
Previous Weekly Low	184.66
Previous Monthly High	187.52
Previous Monthly Low	178.35
Daily Fibonacci 38.2%	187.64
Daily Fibonacci 61.8%	187.96
Daily Pivot Point S1	187.06
Daily Pivot Point S2	186.42
Daily Pivot Point S3	185.71
Daily Pivot Point R1	188.42
Daily Pivot Point R2	189.12
Daily Pivot Point R3	189.77

Author

Joshua Gibson

FXStreet

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.

GBP/USD remains offered; bears target 1.3600

GBP/USD now leaves behind part of its recent recovery and revisits the low 1.3600s at the beginning of the week. Indeed, Cable trades with a mild downward bias amid decent gains in the Greenback as investors remain wary of upcoming US data releases and the Jackson Hole event.

EUR/USD remains sidelined above 1.1650

EUR/USD trades on the defensive following the closing bell on Wall Street on Monday, hovering around the 1.1660 region and adding to Friday’s small decline. The pair’s pullback comes in response to an acceptable rebound in the US Dollar in a context of generalised caution ahead of key US data releases and Chair Warsh’s speech in Jackson Hole.

Gold advances to over three-month high as bulls look to reclaim $4,700

Gold climbs to a fresh high since mid-May, with bulls now eyeing $4,700 and extending the rally witnessed since the beginning of this month. The US Treasury's bond market intervention failure fuels concerns about fiscal sustainability and boosts demand for bullion as an alternative store of value. Moreover, the US Dollar struggles to attract any meaningful buyers, which, along with receding bets for an immediate Fed rate hike, continues to benefit the non-yielding yellow metal.

XRP surged 72%, but is the rally really about XRP?

Ripple (XRP) surged more than 72% in less than a week, its strongest rally since July 2025, as cryptocurrency prices broadly broke out. But the move has a problem: it may have little to do with XRP itself. The token's near-term rally appears to have been driven largely by a broader liquidity shift after the US Treasury expanded long-end bond buybacks, pulling yields lower and lifting risk assets.

Convulsion in credit markets

The United States government just posted a $432.3 billion deficit for July, the largest monthly shortfall since March of 2021. That single burst of red ink pushed the yeartodate deficit to $1.8 trillion, with two months still remaining in fiscal 2026. At this pace, Washington will soon wax nostalgic for the “good old days” when annual deficits were only $2 trillion.

$20 billion offered, $2 billion taken: Why Treasury doubled its buyback cap

The US Treasury moved off its own calendar on Wednesday, and that is the part worth sitting with. At 12:32 GMT, the department said it would at least double the size of liquidity support buyback operations in the 10-year to 20-year and 20-year to 30-year sectors, lifting the maximum from $2 billion per operation to at least $4 billion, effective September 9 and running to November 4.