Key points:
- Dollar wreaks havoc in Asia
- Yen sinks beyond key ¥152 mark
- Rally breaks out of 200-day SMA
Japanese yen has been hit hard from the persistent US dollar’s advance. Broadly, Asia’s currencies felt the heat.
- The
USDJPY pair shifted gears for a quick sprint to levels above ¥152 early Wednesday morning. Japan’s yen has been in a steady decline over the past few weeks, losing about 10% of its valuation against the stronger dollar since hitting a 2024 peak in mid-September. The yen’s fall was part of a broader dollar effort to shake forex dealmaking across the Asian currency market. - The dollar made waves also against South Korea’s won, which dropped about 0.2% to ₩1,383.1. The Thai baht and Indonesian rupiah also buckled under the pressure from the mighty dollar. Prospects of a gradual reduction to interest rates in the US are keeping the momentum going for the US dollar — rates that are higher for longer suggest better returns on dollar-tied assets such as bonds.
- Digging deeper into the dollar-yen trade, a nice technical setup just materialized on the chart. The 200-day simple moving average (SMA), an indicator for long-term trend direction, got pierced from the bullish swing today. What this means is that dollar bulls appear ready to try and take the pair to higher grounds while bears will need to do better in their efforts to tear down the greenback’s charge.
