The overnight fall in the Nikkei 225 of 1.76% has resulted in an impressive two bar reversal (aka a shooting star) on the daily chart for the USD/JPY – so no surprise to see the pair move lower in this morning’s trading session.
What is perhaps more significant is this move in the JPY is not consistent across the JPY pairs we follow on our matrix, and in particular the EUR/JPY and GBP/JPY. The latter is a pair I am looking to short on a longer term basis, but patience is required not least because I want to see the JPY begin to move away from the bottom (oversold) on the currency strength indicator. This also highlights a key aspect of forex trading, namely individual currencies can stay overbought or oversold for much longer than we expect. Much, of course, will depend on risk sentiment, and in particular whether the current downwards trend in equities continues, and if so then we are likely to see this reflected in further buying of the JPY. So until then I will continue to wait and monitor the GBP/JPY closely.