GBP/JPY hobbled at 144.00 as market fears play tug-of-war

• Guppy moving flatly after struggling to develop momentum on Thursday.
• Risk aversion  remains fairly well-bid across the G10 marketscape  as investors fear growing trade tensions once more.

GBP/JPY finds itself frozen at the 144.00 major handle after a mild dip-and-recover on Thursday as bearish Brexit headlines continue to pull the Sterling towards the downside, and a notable risk-off tinge to broader markets is keeping the Guppy from staging a full-scale recovery.

Sino-US trade wars are all but back on the table following Canada’s arrest of China’s mega-corporation Huawei’s global CFO for extradition to the US, a move that is sparking an angry response from Chinese officials; President Trump is doing little to help the mood with tweets where he declares himself a “Tariff Man”, and returning to his regular vitriolic brand of tweets this week after a fairly cowed appearance at the G20 Leader’s Summit last weekend, where Trump and China’s Xi Jinping initially agreed to a 90-day tariff truce while the two sides return to the negotiating table, and Trump waited until he was back within the safety of the White House to continue his regular flow of firebranding.

The GBP/JPY pairing clocked in an inside bar on Wednesday near a key inflection point at medium-term resistance above 143.20, and a break to the upside is likely to be met by fresh resistance at the 200-day MA at 146.90, with near-term resistance from swing highs at the 149.50 barrier.

GBP/JPY Technical Levels