Key Highlights
- The US Dollar climbed higher recently and traded above the 113.00 resistance against the Japanese Yen.
- There was a break above a major bearish trend line with resistance at 113.24 on the 4-hours chart of USD/JPY.
- The US Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending Dec 08, 2018 declined from 233K (revised) to 206K.
- Today, the US Retail Sales figure for Nov 2018 will be released, which is forecasted to rise 0.2% (MoM).
USDJPY Technical Analysis
The US Dollar recovered nicely during the past few days and traded above 112.50 and 113.00 resistances against the Japanese Yen. The USD/JPY pair is now approaching a crucial hurdle near 114.00-114.20.
Looking at the 4-hours chart, the pair started a solid recovery after trading as low as 112.32. The pair bounced back above 113.00 and the 61.8% Fib retracement level of the last drop from the 114.03 high to 112.23 low.
Moreover, there was a close above the 113.00 level and the 100 simple moving average (red, 4-hours). The pair is now placed nicely above 113.00 and it seems like it could retest the 114.00 resistance area, which acted as a hurdle for buyers on many previous occasions.
If there is a proper break above 114.00 and 114.20, the pair may climb towards 115.00. If not, the pair could decline once again below 113.00 and the 100 SMA.
Fundamentally, the US Initial Jobless Claims figure for the week ending Dec 08, 2018 was released by the US Department of Labor. The market was looking for a decline from the last reading of 231K to 225K.
However, the result was positive as there was a decline in jobless claims to 206K. However, the last reading was revised up from 231K to 233K. The report added that:
The 4-week moving average was 224,750, a decrease of 3,750 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised up by 500 from 228,000 to 228,500.
Overall, the US Dollar remained in a positive zone and increased selling pressure on pairs like EUR/USD, GBP/USD and AUD/USD.
Economic Releases to Watch Today
- Germany’s Manufacturing PMI for Dec 2018 (Preliminary) – Forecast 52.0, versus 51.8 previous.
- Euro Zone Manufacturing PMI Dec 2018 (Preliminary) – Forecast 52.0, versus 51.8 previous.
- Euro Zone Services PMI for Dec 2018 (Preliminary) – Forecast 53.5, versus 53.4 previous.
- US Manufacturing PMI for Dec 2018 (Preliminary) – Forecast 55.4, versus 55.3 previous.
- US Services PMI for Dec 2018 (Preliminary) – Forecast 54.7, versus 54.7 previous.
- US Retail Sales Nov 2018 (MoM) – Forecast +0.2%, versus +0.8% previous.
- US Industrial Production Nov 2018 (MoM) – Forecast +0.3%, versus +0.1% previous.
