USDJPY Coils to Break Higher – Triangle as a Continuation Pattern Hints at 110

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Written By: Mircea Vasiu
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    Summary:
  • USDJPY forms a head and shoulders as a reversal pattern on the 4h chart. Moreover, the right shoulder points to a bullish continuation.

One of the quietest pair of the FX dashboard this 2020 is the USDJPY pair. Unlike its peers, it consolidated a lot. However, despite trading with a bearish bias, in the sense that all the rallies have been sold, it bounced back every time. And now, the pair formed not one, but two bullish patterns – one continuation and one reversal pattern.

The USDJPY tends to react the most during U.S. Presidential election years. As such, it may be that the recent consolidation is just the calm before the storm. If we look back at 2016’s election, the pair exploded higher after consolidating before the outcome.

However, there is a difference between now and then – both central banks have their interest rates to the lower boundary, making it difficult for investors to invest for yield.

Japan’s Suga Hints at a New Sales Tax Hike

When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a couple of weeks ago that he is stepping down, the JPY rose across the board. But the move was quickly reversed on most crosses (e.g., EURJPY). Abe’s successor, Suga, comes from the same party, and the market took it that the Abenomics (i.e., fiscal and monetary polity combined with structural reforms) in Japan will continue. As such, back to business as usual for the JPY pairs.

This week Suge announced that Japan is likely to hike the sales tax again. Not that the first time it had much success with it, but Suga says that there is no other choice given that Japan cannot avoid the decline in population.

USDJPY Technical Analysis

We can see a head and shoulders forming on the four-hour timeframe, with the price action consolidating on the right shoulder currently. This is a reversal pattern, pointing to a move above 110.

Moreover, the right shoulder’s price action forms a triangle as a continuation pattern – another reason to be bullish.

Hence, bulls would want to go long on the neckline’s break with 110 as target and 105.25 as invalidation.

USDJPY Price Forecast

Written By: Mircea Vasiu

Mircea, MBA in International Business graduating Magna Cum Laudae, trades for a living and contributes to various financial publications for more than six years. He writes about macroeconomics, stock indices, currencies, and most recently ETFs and individual stocks. For the past decade, he’s involved in everything trading related, mostly in the currency market, both with manual and algorithmic trading.

Published by
Written By: Mircea Vasiu