The Japanese yen started Friday’s trading weak but managed to rebound and is now trading as the strongest currency on the Forex market. The currency gained on the US dollar as the FOMC-inspired rally of the greenback continued to fade. Today’s macroeconomic data in Japan demonstrated deflation of consumer prices, though experts were expecting that.
The Statistics Bureau of Japan reported that the national core Consumer Price Index, which excludes fresh food, fell by 0.4% in August both on a monthly and annual basis. The actual value matched the consensus forecast. The index was unchanged in the preceding month. The headline CPI fell by 0.1% month-on-month but rose by 0.2% year-on-year.
Japanese Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said today that he is going to work with the Bank of Japan to prevent deflation. He stated that consumer prices were moving sideways excluding the impact of the domestic travel campaign.
The US dollar was rising immediately after the Federal Reserve released a monetary policy statement that turned out to be less dovish than markets were anticipating. But the greenback has reversed the movement afterward and continued to fall today. Yesterday’s negative US economic data added to the downside momentum of the US currency.
Trading may be less active than usual at the start of the next week as Japanese markets will be closed for holidays on September 21–22.
USD/JPY dropped from 104.74 to 104.33 as of 10:51 GMT today. EUR/JPY fell from 124.09 to 123.53. GBP/JPY declined from 135.87 to 135.43, retreating from the daily high of 136.16.
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