Yen And Nikkei, Slip Sliding Away…

 | Jul 26, 2016 02:08AM ET

The USD/JPY, Yen crosses, and the Nikkei 225 under relentless pressure today as position squaring and possible disappointments take their toll.

The hype over Japan stimuli seems to be fading fast into Friday’s BoJ meeting. Various officials have been out on the wires this morning and overnight and the general tone seems to be one of less is more rather than a big bang.

This continued to weigh on USD/JPY and JPY/Crosses in the Asia session. Following on from my thoughts Friday, USD/JPY fell out of bed this morning as pre-central bank meeting liquidity deteriorates. USD/JPY broke the New York lows at 105.75 and dropped 100 pips in quick succession, to 104.75, triggering stop losses and more pain on the Yen crosses.

The headline below seems to have been the nail in the coffin of a nervous market,

10:30 (JP) Japan PM Abe: To maintain FY20 fiscal target – Govt sees FY20 nominal GDP at ¥583T assuming economic growth- Will not reach nominal GDP target of ¥600T in FY24 if economic growth maintains current pace. – Source TradeTheNews.com

The Government’s central fiscal 2020 target is to achieve a budget surplus under the grand Abenomics plan. The parlous state of government finances does erode their ability to come out with a “king hit” stimulus package. With the FOMC unlikely to come to the rescue with a rate hike, the cold realisation we may be in for disappointment sees short JPY positioning taken off the board before the Bank of Japan meeting.

The NIKKEI is also suffering down 1.44% as we speak.

USD/JPY

Daily support at 104.45 broken as I write with nothing until 103.17, previous double top and Ichimoko conversion line. Resistance way above now around 105.75, the New York lows.