Outperforms On Thursday, Ueda States Can't See Inflation Target Being Met Yet

USD/JPY fell to 149.21 in NY trade on Thursday amid mixed US data, before rebounding back to just above 150.00. We sit close to this level in early Friday Asia Pac trade, with comments from BoJ Governor Ueda not shifting sentiment yet see below for more details.

• The yen was the only G10 currency to record a material rise against the USD for Thursday's session, up around 0.50%. Carry over from BoJ Board member Takata's hawkish speech yesterday aiding the yen backdrop.
• Comments from BoJ Governor Ueda are crossing the wires at the moment (The Governor is in Brazil for G20 meetings). ON balance, his comments are a little more cautious than those presented by Board member Takata yesterday.
• Ueda noted: CANNOT SEE YET INFLATION TARGET IS MET - BBG and NEED TO SEE MORE DATA TO CONFIRM 'VIRTUOUS CIRCLE' - BBG
• Still the Governor was optimism around growth returning, and downplayed the recent GDP misses. Critical to judging the inflation outlook is this year's annual wage negotiations. He noted expectations from unions in terms of wage demands had picked up since the BoJ Jan report.
• USD/JPY's pull back on Thursday saw it breach the 20-day EMA around 149.63, but the break was not convincing. This supports the view that dips are still supported in the pair and the technical backdrop is supportive.
• Today we have Jan unemployment data, along with the final Feb PMI reading. Consumer confidence prints later. In the option expiry space, note the following for NY cut later: 150.00 (544mln), 150.50 (282mln).