The US Dollar held in the lower 152.00s against the Japanese Yen and traded near 153.00 on Thursday. Strong US jobs data reduced expectations of near-term Federal Reserve rate cuts, offering some support to the Dollar.<\/p>\n
US Nonfarm Payrolls for January showed 130K jobs added, above the 70K forecast. The unemployment rate fell to 4.3% from 4.4% in December.<\/p>\n
Gains were concentrated, with healthcare adding more than 80K jobs. Separately, 2025 job data was revised down to 181,000 net jobs from 584,000.<\/p>\n
The Yen led G8 major currencies this week and was on course for its best week in over a year. Markets reacted to Prime Minister Takaichi\u2019s election victory and expectations of a stable government.<\/p>\n
Markets also focused on expected effects from proposed stimulus programmes and tax cuts. Expectations for Bank of Japan rate rises increased, with pricing for a move as soon as March and one or two more hikes this year.<\/p>\n
Bank of Japan policy, bond yield differences between Japan and the US, and market risk sentiment are key drivers of the Yen. The Bank has at times intervened in currency markets, and changes in its policy stance have affected the Yen since 2013\u20132024 and after 2024.<\/p>\n
We are observing the USD\/JPY pair consolidating around the 153.00 level. While Wednesday’s stronger-than-expected US jobs report is holding the dollar up, the massive downward revision of 2025’s job numbers from 584,000 to just 181,000 suggests underlying weakness. This push-and-pull environment may limit any significant upside in the very near term.<\/p>\n
The real story is the strengthening Japanese Yen, which is on track for its best week in over a year following Prime Minister Takaichi\u2019s election. Futures markets are now pricing in an 85% probability of a 10 basis point hike at the March 19th BoJ meeting, which would be their third hike since ending negative rates in 2025. This growing expectation should act as a strong headwind for the USD\/JPY pair.<\/p>\n
In the coming weeks, we should consider using any USD strength towards the mid-153.00s as an opportunity to build bearish positions. Implied volatility for options expiring after the March central bank meetings is rising, reflecting the market’s anticipation of a decisive move. Purchasing USD\/JPY puts or establishing put spreads can provide a defined-risk way to position for a drop driven by central bank policy divergence.<\/p>\n
We have seen this pattern before, particularly in late 2023, where strong headline data masked a cooling trend that was only revealed later in revisions. The spread between US and Japanese 10-year government bonds has already tightened by nearly 30 basis points in 2026, narrowing the interest rate differential that has supported the dollar for years. This compression of yields adds fundamental weight to the bearish outlook for the currency pair.<\/p>\n
Create your live VT Markets account<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0start trading<\/a>\u00a0now. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dollar steadied near 153 yen as strong US jobs data trimmed Fed cut bets; yen surged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":17040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-updates"],"acf":{"acf_article_selection_author":null},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}