The BOJ outlook report on January 23

Today is the day of the Bank of Japan meeting. The BOJ announced its Outlook Report. The key point is that the Bank kept its monetary policy unchanged. This meeting showed almost solid consent - eight to one member voted to leave interest rates at the same level of -0.1%. At the same time, the members claimed that quantitative and qualitative monetary easing (QQE) with yield curve control (YCC) program will be continued. The Bank is promising to buy Japanese government bonds so that 10-year JGB yields will remain around 0%. The Bank is going to “continue expanding the monetary base until the year-on-year rate of increase in the observed CPI exceeds 2% and stays above the target in a stable manner”.

So the BOJ claims that it is going to continue with the current loose policy. However, there are speculations around this report, investors are expecting policy normalization soon. We can see it on a USD/JPY pair 4-hours chart. Despite the news about the unchanged Japanese monetary policy, USD/JPY is falling, the lowest price from the time of the announcement was 110.63.

Technical analysis shows that USD/JPY is dangerously close to the support line from the 2016 low in 110 area. Very close to this area there is 100-week MA. These strong support levels will hold initial selling pressure. On the upside, the main obstacle is at 111.70 (200-day MA, 50-week MA).

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Darya Bobrova