USD/JPY Back To Familiar Ranges, BoJ Nominations In Focus Tomorrow

USD/JPY's dip sub 130.00 late in the Asia session on Friday wasn't sustained. We recovered back to 131.60 late in NY trade. The pair is a touch lower in the first part of trade today, last around 131.40/35. This is within ranges from late last week. The 20-day EMA comes in around 130.83, while on top is the 50-day EMA at 132.65.

• Market focus will remain on BoJ nominations tomorrow. The yen surged on Friday amid reports Kazuo Ueda, a Professor and former BoJ board member, will be Kishida's nomination for the BoJ Governor position. Ueda hadn't previously been flagged as a candidate, so the report took the market by surprise (with previous front runner Deputy Governor Amamiya reportedly refusing the offer to take the position).
• Ueda stated late on Friday that BoJ should continue, which helped trim yen gains. Ueda is seen, on balance, a slightly more hawkish candidate relative to Amamiya.
• Yield momentum also continues to move in favor of the USD. This likely helped USD/JPY through NY trade. The 10-yr US-JP swap spread is back to +256bps
• The Japan data calendar is quiet today. 1 week USD/JPY vol is around 15.80% currently. We did spike close to 18% during Friday trade.