USD/JPY pares daily losses, turns positive above 107.30 after US data dump

• USD/JPY finds support below 107 in American trading hours.
• Retail Sales in US plunged by a record 16.4% in April.
• UoM Consumer Sentiment Index recovered unexpectedly in May.

The risk-off environment helped the JPY gather strength in the early American session and dragged the USD/JPY pair below 107. However, the pair gained traction in the last hour and erased its daily losses. As of writing, USD/JPY was up 0.07% on a daily basis at 107.31.

Mixed US data

Earlier in the day, the data published by the US Census Bureau showed that Retail Sales in the US declined by 16.4% in April. This reading marked the largest monthly drop in the data’s history and came in worse than the market expectation for a fall of 12%. Furthermore, the Federal Reserve announced that Industrial Production contracted by 11.2%.

However, the UoM Consumer Sentiment Index in May’s preliminary estimate recovered unexpectedly to 73.7 from 71.8 in April and helped the market sentiment improve. 

The US Dollar Index, which slumped to a daily low of 100.08, reversed its direction after the UoM’s report and was last seen gaining 0.08% on the day at 100.35. Meanwhile, Wall Street’s main indexes pulled away from daily lows to make it difficult for the safe-haven JPY to show resilience.

There won’t be any other macroeconomic data releases in the remainder of the day and the USD’s market valuation is likely to continue to impact USD/JPY’s movements.

Technical levels to watch for