Not the V-shaped rebound many would have in mind
The pair reached a bottom of 101.19 at the start of last week as coronavirus fears rampaged on and the yen was the flavour of the day at the time.
Fast forward to this week, it has been a whole other story as the market has piled into dollar amid a rush for cash and an exodus in risk assets as well as emerging markets.
In turn, USD/JPY is now back up and is headed towards 110.00 currently.
Mind you, the yen is still the next best performing major currency since 9 March but it is still trading nearly 4% lower against the dollar. That tells you more about the story of this V-shaped recovery in USD/JPY.
It isn't a story about change in risk sentiment - well, depends on how you look at it - but more so about a rush to the dollar instead. It is not that coronavirus fears are receding, it is that we have moved to the second phase of the economic fallout.
In any case, the technical picture of USD/JPY shows that there is some decent resistance at around the 110.00 level with price also looking to keep above the 76.4 retracement level @ 109.62 after a break of the key daily moving averages today.
If price keeps above 109.00, the technical bias turns more bullish and that is a good victory for buyers to build on moving forward. A break of 110.00 will be a real bonus.
For now, the dollar is still extremely underpinned on the back of funding pressures and unless the market sentiment changes, it is hard to see things turn around just yet.
