The Japanese yen was very soft today following a bunch of mixed economic reports released from Japan during the Asian trading session. The currency had attempted to rise after the release of US non-farm payrolls, but the attempt has failed and the yen kept gains only versus the US dollar (as of now USD/JPY has actually bounced back to the opening level).
Japan’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate ticked up by 0.1 percentage point to 3.4 percent in August while analysts did not expect any change. The increase was minimal and the other (positive) report was perhaps actually more important. It showed that household spending climbed 2.9 percent in August from the previous year after falling 0.2 percent in the prior month. Yet for some reason traders preferred to focus on the bad part of data, driving the yen down.
The Japanese currency attempted to stage a rebound after non-farm payrolls sent the market into turmoil, leading to spike in risk aversion. Yet the rally was extremely short-lived, and the yen slipped back very quickly.
USD/JPY traded at about 119.90 as of 18:27 GMT today after opening at 119.91 and sliding to 118.67 intraday — the lowest rate since September 4. GBP/JPY gained from 181.43 to 182.04. EUR/JPY rose from 134.22 to 134.54.
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