Japanese Yen Continues to Strengthen

The Japanese Yen continues to strengthen, with the USD.JPY currency pair trading below ¥141, calling its long-term bullish trend into question.

1. In the Forex market, the spotlight is on the USD/JPY currency pair as the Japanese Yen continues its multi-day streak of getting stronger, with the Yen the strongest major currency so far today and the US Dollar the weakest. USD/JPY is now trading well below ¥141 which calls into question the long-term bullish trend as the price now seems to have broken below a very pivotal area of support near that round number.
2. The GBP/USD currency pair is also interesting today, as it continues to break to new long-term highs and exhibit bullish momentum. GBP/USD is now trading at a 15-month high close to $1.2900.
3. Equity markets are higher on positive Chinese property prospects. Most global stock markets are trading higher, especially in Asia, where the Hang Seng Index is up by more than 1.25% on the day so far.
4. Bitcoin remains below what seems to be a very pivotal round number at $31k, with the price action now looking more uncertain, suggesting that a bullish breakout may not be likely.
5. Short-term US inflation expectations have fallen to a 2-year low, but there is still an extremely strong consensus expectation that the US Federal Reserve will be hiking rates by 25bps at its next policy meeting.
6. The NASDAQ 100 Index will be rebalanced to reduce its very high level of concentration, with only 6 companies currently accounting for half the weighting.
7. There will be a release of UK unemployment claims data later today.
8. Early tomorrow the Reserve Bank of New Zealand will be holding a policy meeting, at which it is not expected to change its Official Rate.