USD/JPY Price Forecast: Tests 160.50 as RSI backs rally, intervention risks loom
- USD/JPY holds above 160.00 as bullish momentum remains intact.
- RSI favors further upside, though intervention zone caps conviction.
- Break above 160.50 exposes 160.73 and 161.00 resistance.
The USD/JPY advances steadily on Tuesday as market participants brace for the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decision, as the meeting kicked off during the day. At the time of writing, the pair trades at 160.47, within the intervention zone.
USD/JPY Price Forecast: Technical outlook
The USD/JPY has bounced off 159.50 since last week, but it has failed to gain traction amid investor fears of a potential Japanese FX market intervention. From a momentum standpoint, the uptrend should continue as the Relative Strength Index (RSI) is bullish.
Worth noting that the Bank of Japan (BoJ) raised interest rates on Tuesday by 25 basis points to 1% as expected, but the Yen failed to appreciate due to an improvement in risk appetite.
On the upside, the first resistance for USD/JPY is 160.50. A breach of the latter will expose the year-to-date (YTD) high of 160.73 ahead of the 161.00 milestone.
Conversely, if USD/JPY dives below 160.00, the first support would be psychological 159.50, ahead of challenging the 50-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) at 159.00. Below this level, the next support is the 100-day SMA at 158.02.
USD/JPY Price Chart – Daily
Japanese Yen Price Today
The table below shows the percentage change of Japanese Yen (JPY) against listed major currencies today. Japanese Yen was the strongest against the Australian Dollar.
| USD | EUR | GBP | JPY | CAD | AUD | NZD | CHF | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USD | -0.15% | -0.08% | 0.06% | 0.03% | 0.10% | -0.14% | -0.18% | |
| EUR | 0.15% | 0.09% | 0.26% | 0.20% | 0.24% | 0.01% | -0.02% | |
| GBP | 0.08% | -0.09% | 0.17% | 0.13% | 0.16% | -0.06% | -0.09% | |
| JPY | -0.06% | -0.26% | -0.17% | -0.06% | -0.01% | -0.19% | -0.25% | |
| CAD | -0.03% | -0.20% | -0.13% | 0.06% | 0.05% | -0.17% | -0.22% | |
| AUD | -0.10% | -0.24% | -0.16% | 0.01% | -0.05% | -0.22% | -0.25% | |
| NZD | 0.14% | -0.01% | 0.06% | 0.19% | 0.17% | 0.22% | -0.04% | |
| CHF | 0.18% | 0.02% | 0.09% | 0.25% | 0.22% | 0.25% | 0.04% |
The heat map shows percentage changes of major currencies against each other. The base currency is picked from the left column, while the quote currency is picked from the top row. For example, if you pick the Japanese Yen from the left column and move along the horizontal line to the US Dollar, the percentage change displayed in the box will represent JPY (base)/USD (quote).
Japanese Yen FAQs
The Japanese Yen (JPY) is one of the world’s most traded currencies. Its value is broadly determined by the performance of the Japanese economy, but more specifically by the Bank of Japan’s policy, the differential between Japanese and US bond yields, or risk sentiment among traders, among other factors.
One of the Bank of Japan’s mandates is currency control, so its moves are key for the Yen. The BoJ has directly intervened in currency markets sometimes, generally to lower the value of the Yen, although it refrains from doing it often due to political concerns of its main trading partners. The BoJ ultra-loose monetary policy between 2013 and 2024 caused the Yen to depreciate against its main currency peers due to an increasing policy divergence between the Bank of Japan and other main central banks. More recently, the gradually unwinding of this ultra-loose policy has given some support to the Yen.
Over the last decade, the BoJ’s stance of sticking to ultra-loose monetary policy has led to a widening policy divergence with other central banks, particularly with the US Federal Reserve. This supported a widening of the differential between the 10-year US and Japanese bonds, which favored the US Dollar against the Japanese Yen. The BoJ decision in 2024 to gradually abandon the ultra-loose policy, coupled with interest-rate cuts in other major central banks, is narrowing this differential.
The Japanese Yen is often seen as a safe-haven investment. This means that in times of market stress, investors are more likely to put their money in the Japanese currency due to its supposed reliability and stability. Turbulent times are likely to strengthen the Yen’s value against other currencies seen as more risky to invest in.
Author
Christian Borjon Valencia
FXStreet
Markets analyst, news editor, and trading instructor with over 14 years of experience across FX, commodities, US equity indices, and global macro markets.
