USD/JPY retreats from daily highs, looks to close the week flat around 110.00

After closing the previous two trading days in the negative territory, the USD/JPY pair staged a rebound and reached a daily high of 110.35 in the early American session. However, the pair struggled to preserve its bullish momentum and was last seen gaining 0.22% on the day at 110.10. For the week, USD/JPY remains on track to close virtually unchanged.

The broad-based USD strength helped USD/JPY gain traction ahead of the weekend. The risk-averse market environment helped the greenback find demand as a safe haven and the US Dollar Index (DXY) advanced to 92.75 before going into a consolidation phase. At the moment, the DXY is up 0.12% at 92.67.

Meanwhile, the mixed macroeconomic data releases from the US failed to trigger a noticeable market reaction. The US Census Bureau reported that Retail Sales increased by 0.6% in June, beating the market expectation for a decline of 0.4%. On a negative note, the University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index declined to 80.8 in July's advanced reading from 85.5 in June, missing analysts' estimate of 86.5.

USD/JPY near-term outlook

Karen Jones, Team Head FICC Technical Analysis Research at Commerzbank, thinks that USD/JPY could continue to push lower with a break below the July low at 109.54.

"USD/JPY’s recent bounce failed along the breached 2021 uptrend line, the outlook stays negative," Jones notes. "Attention is currently at the July low at 109.54. Failure here would put the 108.56 late May low and the 107.48 April low back on the map. Resistance above this week’s high at 110.70 comes in at the 110.97 March peak and also at the 111.11 June 24 as well as at the current July high at 111.66."

Additional levels to watch for