USD/JPY keeps the red near 108.00 handle after Kuroda’s remarks
- Investors looked past Wednesday’s hawkish rate cut by the Fed.
- BoJ’s maintains status-quo and prompts some long-unwinding trade.
The Japanese Yen held firm against its American counterpart, with the USD/JPY pair struggling near the lower end of its daily trading range, around the 108.00 handle.
BoJ fails to impress bulls
The pair failed to capitalize on the previous session's post-FOMC uptick to fresh multi-week tops and met with some aggressive supply on Thursday after the Bank of Japan (BoJ) offered no additional hints of any potential easing measures. Following the conclusion of the latest policy meeting, the BoJ decided to maintain status-quo and left key interest rates unchanged at 0.10% and also retained the pledge to keep the 10-year government bond yield around 0.0%.
The central bank reiterated that extremely low rates will remain for a prolonged period, at least through the spring of 2020 and expressed readiness to add more stimulus if required. In the post-meeting press conference, the BoJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said that the Japanese economy is expanding moderately and price momentum has been maintained so far. Kuroda further added that the central bank won't hesitate to ease further if risks from overseas economies threaten the price momentum rise, though did little to impress the bulls.
As investors looked past Wednesday's hawkish rate cut by the Fed, it will now be interesting to see if the pair is able to attract any buying interest at lower levels or the current pullback marks the end of the recent strong recovery from multi-year lows set on August 26.
Technical levels to watch