Bid Limited By Y147.00 Area In USD/JPY

The initial JPY bid runs out of steam as USD/JPY bears fail to force a meaningful break through Y147.00 (lows of Y146.99). BoJ Governor Ueda has noted that the Bank will have more data available come the April meeting (vs. March), which suggests that a policy tweak will not come at the next meeting. Still, he went on to note that the Bank could alter policy settings even if real wages are in negative territory, while he also highlighted that the Bank doesn’t need the results of wage negotiations for all small firms to make a decision re: policy tweaks as projections can be made for some of the smaller names, alongside a higher degree of uncertainty re: wage discussions. Ueda also stressed the need to be able to guide monetary policy whatever the political backdrop is in Japan.

• Modestly hawkish utterances from the BoJ Governor thus far, as opposed to a commitment to an imminent policy tweak.
• Short JPY positioning established in early ’24 will have further helped the move lower in XXX/JPY pairs.