USD/JPY Price action: Fresh highs above 149.00 on dovish BoJ

BoJ Deputy Shinichi Uchida cooled hopes for an upcoming tightening cycle in Japan.
The Nikkei 225 posted its highest close since February 1990, adding roughly 750 points.
USD/JPY on its way to test the 150.00 level, according to the daily chart.

FXStreet Team FXStreet

The US Dollar struggles for direction on Thursday, but not against its Japanese rival. The USD/JPY pair trades in the 149.30 region, its highest since last November. Dovish comments from Bank of Japan (BoJ) Deputy Governor Shinichi Uchida, stating policy tightening would be gradual and that a rate adjustment would not necessarily trigger a tightening cycle, weighed on the Japanese Yen.

Such comments underpinned local equities. The Nikkei 225 added roughly 750 points or 2% on the day, outperforming its Asian counterparts. The index closed the day at 36,863.28, the highest close since February 1990.

Meanwhile, higher United States (US) government bond yields gave USD/JPY an additional boost. Solid US employment figures pushed the 10-year Treasury yield to a fresh weekly high of 4.16%, as Initial Jobless Claims further blurred the odds for a Federal Reserve’s (Fed) rate cut.

USD/JPY Technical Outlook

The USD/JPY pair trades a handful of pips below its intraday high, paring its run amid the poor performance of Wall Street, reflecting a souring mood. Still, the pair retains substantial gains and has room to test the 150.00 mark in the upcoming sessions.

In the daily chart, the pair bottomed around a directionless 100 Simple Moving Average (SMA) for the week, providing dynamic support at around 147.50. The initial bounce turned into a firmer rally, and the 20 SMA is currently crossing the mentioned 100 SMA, reinforcing the support area. As long as above it, bulls will likely retain control.

Finally, the Momentum indicator recovered from around its 100 level, while the Relative Strength Index (RSI) indicator accelerated north and approaches overbought readings, both reflecting strong buying interest.

USD/JPY

Overview
Today last price	149.31
Today Daily Change	1.13
Today Daily Change %	0.76
Today daily open	148.18

Trends
Daily SMA20	147.46
Daily SMA50	145.36
Daily SMA100	147.49
Daily SMA200	144.83

Levels
Previous Daily High	148.26
Previous Daily Low	147.63
Previous Weekly High	148.59
Previous Weekly Low	145.9
Previous Monthly High	148.81
Previous Monthly Low	140.81
Daily Fibonacci 38.2%	148.02
Daily Fibonacci 61.8%	147.87
Daily Pivot Point S1	147.79
Daily Pivot Point S2	147.4
Daily Pivot Point S3	147.16
Daily Pivot Point R1	148.41
Daily Pivot Point R2	148.65
Daily Pivot Point R3	149.04

Author

FXStreet Team

FXStreet

Composed of a group of economic journalists and FX experts, the FXStreet content team produces and oversees all content published on FXStreet. It provides a purely journalistic approach to the Forex market.

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