Japan lobby head urges BOJ to normalise policy to live with interest rates

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An outspoken leader of a Japanese business lobby said on Thursday the central bank should unwind its easing programmes to live with interest rates although it may take a year to exit monetary stimulus.

Takeshi Niinami, chairman of Keizai Doyukai, who also heads Suntory Holdings Ltd, said the Bank of Japan „must normalise“ monetary policy so that it could help weed out incompetent firms and facilitate labour turnover towards growth industries.

• „The BOJ must make a move,“
• „There must be quite a lot of political reservation about completely abandoning them,“
• „That’s why the BOJ may be thinking it would be better off falling behind the curve.“
• „That should be taken as a message that the BOJ is leaving the YCC behind gradually,“
• „If it’s unwound all at once that would cause ripple effects though.“

This article was written by Ryan Paisey at www.forexlive.com.

Futures listless as markets await more policy cues

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U.S. stock index futures were muted on Thursday as uncertainty about when the Federal Reserve will start easing financial conditions kept investors on edge as they awaited further policy cues from central bank officials.

Signs of a weakening labor market and a tempering of the Fed’s hawkish stance at its last meeting have pulled U.S. Treasury yields down from multi-year highs, helping equities stage a stellar comeback from their October lows.

A majority of traders are betting that the Fed will keep interest rates unchanged this year, with odds of a cut of atleast 25 basis points in May standing at nearly 48%, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.

This article was written by Ryan Paisey at www.forexlive.com.

The Dow Jones managed to hold into the last week
gains and consolidated near a key resistance as the first part of the week
didn’t offer any meaningful catalysts. The things should change today though as
we will see the latest US Jobless Claims data and given the recent weakness in
the labour market data, the market is likely to react strongly to this report.

Dow Jones Technical
Analysis – Daily Timeframe

On the daily chart, we can see that the Dow Jones erased
all the losses of the past couple of weeks and it’s now consolidating around a
key resistance where we
can find the confluence with the
trendline and the
61.8% Fibonacci retracement level.
This is where the sellers are likely to pile in to position for a selloff into
new lows with a great risk to reward setup.

Dow Jones Technical
Analysis – 4 hour Timeframe

On the 4 hour chart, we can see more closely the
bearish setup with the key resistance highlighted by the blue box. The price in
the first part of the week managed to break the high but erased the gains soon
after. The buyers are likely piling in here with a defined risk below the
trendline to position for another rally into the 35000 level. A break below the
trendline should invalidate the bullish setup and confirm the bearish one.

Dow Jones Technical
Analysis – 1 hour Timeframe

On the 1 hour chart, we can see that the
recent price action is diverging with
the MACD right
when we are at a key resistance. This is generally a sign of weakening momentum
often followed by pullbacks or reversals. In this case, we got a pullback into
the previous higher low, but if the price breaks below it, the reversal would
be confirmed, and it would be another bearish confluence for the sellers.

Upcoming Events

Today we have the US Jobless Claims on
the agenda, while tomorrow it will be the time for the University of Michigan
Consumer Sentiment report. The market is likely to focus on the US Jobless
Claims given the recent weakness in the labour market data. Weak figures are
likely to weigh on sentiment and push the Dow Jones lower, while good readings
might be enough for the market to rally.

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