- USD/JPY maintains the choppy range amid a lack of market reaction.
- Good Friday and the Easter Monday restrict major moves despite Japan’s open.
- Coronavirus weighs on the market’s risk-tone, the US dollar stays on the back foot.
USD/JPY stays around 108.50 amid the early Monday morning in Asia. While the recent lack of market activity, due to the holidays at major bourses, seems to have limited the pair’s moves, coronavirus (COVID-19) remains as the key challenge to the global markets.
The pandemic fears have recently weighed on the US dollar as the world’s largest economy turned into the global epicenter of the virus-related cases and the deaths.
Although the Fed and the Trump administration are firing from all the cylinders, some among the Federal Reserve policymakers, including Chairman Jerome Powell, remain pessimistic.
During late-Sunday in the US, early Monday in Asia, Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari mentioned that the US economy faces ‘long, hard road’ to recover from coronavirus.
Looking at the statistics, there are more than 20,000 deaths and above 530,000 cases of the deadly virus in the US.
Not only in the US, but Japan also suffers from the epidemic and stays ready to counter with massive stimulus.
The global markets remain under pressure due to the virus’s fears. While portraying the same, the S&P 500 Futures drop 0.85% to 2,763 by the press time.
Looking forward, a lack of major data/events will push investors towards virus updates for fresh impulse. It should also be noted that major markets, except for Japan and China, are off due to the Easter Monday and the same could restrict the pair’s moves.
Technical analysis
A daily closing below 200-day SMA level of 108.35 becomes necessary for the pair to revisit the sub-108.00 mark, else the previous week top surrounding 109.35 remains on the bulls’ radars.
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