If you’ve been glued to yours screens waiting for that USD/JPY push towards 150.00 again, it must be a real snoozer over the last 1.5 hours. Here’s the minute price action in the pair and it shows a roughly 8-10 pips range:

At this stage, it’s all about anticipating the things that will or might come next in markets. We know what those are but we don’t know what the bigger picture reaction that may be. Let’s take stock of the the key focus points right now.

1. The bond market. 10-year Treasury yields are down slightly today to 4.95% but it’s all about the trigger at 5% and if that will have broader market spillovers to follow. Or perhaps we could hit stops and see a retracement of sorts first, before revisiting that in the near future.
2. The Israel-Hamas conflict. And now we can sort of add in tensions at the Israel-Lebanon border as Hezbollah starts to interfere as well. There’s so much uncertainty breeding in the region and that is keeping commodities entertained. Gold is up alongside oil but broader markets are not too heavily impacted yet. However, there’s still the potential flight to safety before the weekend to consider.
3. USD/JPY and Tokyo intervention. According to some charts, we clipped the 150.00 mark earlier and that saw a brief drop to 149.73 (or perhaps lower on some charts) before getting bought back up. That to me reads as stops being triggered rather than any Japanese meddling but if we do catch a bid back above the figure level, could Tokyo step in again? There’s only one way to find out.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.

• The Fed left interest rates unchanged as expected at the last meeting.
• The macroeconomic projections were revised higher,
  and the Dot Plot showed that the FOMC still expects another rate hike by the
  end of the year with less rate cuts projected in 2024.
• Fed Chair Powell reaffirmed their data dependency but added that
  they will proceed carefully.
• The US CPI last week beat expectations on the
  headline figures, but the core measures came in line with forecasts and the
  market’s pricing barely changed.
• The labour market remains fairly solid as seen once again yesterday
  with the beat inJobless Claims, although continuing claims missed for a second
  time in a row.
• The US PMIs
  recently showed that the US economy remains pretty resilient.
• The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment report last Friday missed across the
  board with the inflation expectations figures spiking back up.
• The US Retail Sales this week beat expectations by a big
  margin with positive revisions to the prior figures.
• The Fed members continue to cite elevated long-term
  yields as a reason to proceed carefully and will likely pause in November as
  well.
• Fed Chair Powell yesterday highlighted the rise in long term yields
  as well and the need to “proceed carefully”.
• The market doesn’t expect the Fed to hike anymore.

New Zealand:

• The RBNZ kept its official cash rate
  unchanged while
  stating that demand growth continues to ease and it’s expected to decline
  further with monetary conditions remaining restrictive.
• The New Zealand inflation data this week missed expectations
  supporting the RBNZ’s stance.
• The employment data surprised to the upside
  recently.
• The wage growth has also missed
  expectations and it’s something that the central banks are watching closely.
• The recent New Zealand Retail Sales beat expectations although the data
  remains deeply negative.
• The Manufacturing PMI continues to slide further into
  contraction, but the Services PMI jumped back into expansion.
• The RBNZ is expected to keep the
  cash rate steady at the next meeting as well.

NZDUSD Technical Analysis –
Daily Timeframe

On the daily chart, we can see that the NZDUSD pair
managed to eventually break the low following the miss in the New Zealand CPI
and the strong US data. The bearish momentum continues to be weak, but the bias
remains skewed to the downside. The recent drop got a bit overstretched as
depicted by the distance from the blue 8 moving average. In such
instances, we can generally see a pullback into the moving average or some
consolidation before the next move.

NZDUSD Technical Analysis –
4 hour Timeframe

On the 4 hour chart, we can see that we have a good
resistance now
around the 0.5860 level where we can find the confluence with the
trendline, the
38.2% Fibonacci retracement level
and the red 21 moving average. This is where we can expect the sellers to keep
piling in with a defined risk above the trendline to target new lows. The
buyers, on the other hand, will want to see the price breaking higher to
invalidate the bearish setup and target a rally back into the 0.60 handle.

NZDUSD Technical Analysis –
1 hour Timeframe

On the 1 hour chart, we can see more
closely the key levels to watch out for. From a risk management perspective,
the best spot for the sellers was the resistance around the 0.5860 level. Late
sellers may want to wait for the price to take out the low before joining the
trend but with a worse risk to reward setup. The buyers, on the other hand,
should wait for the break above the trendline before considering new longs.

This article was written by FL Contributors at www.forexlive.com.