USD/JPY still a touch higher, last at....>

DOLLAR-YEN: USD/JPY still a touch higher, last at Y109.94. It challenged the

Y110.00 mark as a round of buying emerged into the Tokyo equity open, but the

round figure remained intact. Worth mentioning that there is $1.87bn worth of

options with strikes at that level due to expire at the 10:00ET NY cut. 

- We had some Japanese data releases overnight, but JPY looked past them. Core

machine orders printed at +18% M/M and +5.3% Y/Y vs. expectations of +2.9% and

-5.3% respectively. PPI fell in line with estimates, registering at +0.9% Y/Y

and +0.1% M/M.

- The psychological Y110.00 barrier remains in focus, a break would bring the

the high of Jan 14 at Y110.21 into play. Above there would draw attention to the

May 23 peak at Y110.36. Bears look for a dip below the Jan 13/10 lows of

Y109.45/44 towards the Jan 9 low of Y109.01.