On Thursday afternoon, the USD/JPY pair is trading downwards; the Japanese yen is responding to the statistics.
The Japanese Yen is strengthening against the USD on Thursday. The current quote for the instrument is 113.60.
In the morning, Japan published a lot of macro statistics. And the first published report forced some stormy reactions from the currency market: the Machinery Orders lost 8.1% m/m in September after adding 3.4% m/m in August and against the expected reading of +1.8% m/m. The indicator excludes ships and electrical equipment. Nevertheless, the current numbers aren’t very good.
The point is that this is a leading indicator, so the higher the number the better the conditions.
The Bank Lending expanded by 2.8% y/y in October, which is worse that both the previous reading (3.0% y/y) and expectations (3.2% y/y).
On the other hand, the Japanese Current Account report was pretty good. The indicator showed the highest reading in September (over the period from April to September) since 2007, ¥2271.2B. The Export expanded by 12.9% y/y, the Import by 15.1% y/y.
RoboForex Analytical Department