GBP/JPY tumbles back towards 189.00 in broad-market Yen recovery

• GBP/JPY continues to deflate, falling sharply on Thursday.
• Japanese Retail Sales came in as expected, with revisions.
• Japan’s Unemployment Rate to wrap up the trading week.

GBP/JPY fell back towards the 189.00 handle on Thursday after Yen (JPY) markets stepped higher following a Japanese Retail Sales print that came in at expectations, and previous data saw mixed revisions. UK data remains thin on the economic calendar this week, and Yen traders will be looking ahead to next Tuesday’s Japanese Tokyo Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Japan’s Retail Sales came in at 2.3% for the year ended in January, meeting market forecasts while the previous period saw an upside revision from 2.1% to 2.4%. The MoM figure also recovered to 0.8% after the previous month saw a sharp downside revision to -2.6% from -0.8%.

Japanese Industrial Production in January also declined to -7.5%, missing the -7.3% forecast and falling back from the previous print of 1.4%.

Next up for economic calendar watchers will be Japan’s Unemployment Rate due early Friday, which is forecast to hold steady at 2.4%. Japanese preliminary inflation from the Tokyo CPI is slated for next Tuesday.

GBP/JPY technical outlook

GBP/JPY is down eight-tenths of one percent on Thursday as the pair grinds back towards the 189.00 handle. The pair has slid from the week’s early high near 191.30. GBP/JPY is trading back into a heavy supply zone built around 189.00.

Despite near-term weakness, the pair is buried deep in bull country, with daily candles trading well above the 200-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) at 183.43.

GBP/JPY hourly chart

GBP/JPY daily chart