Ella 
The Japanese yen (JPY) started the new week on a weak note, remaining subdued below the psychological 150.00 mark against the US dollar during the Asian trading session. Bank of Japan (BoJ) Governor Kazuo Ueda reiterated on Friday that it was too early to declare victory over inflation. This is because Japan is experiencing a technical recession, which could force the Bank of Japan to postpone its plans to tighten monetary policy. In addition, the prevailing risk environment has also weakened the yen’s safe-haven function. However, investors appear confident that the Bank of Japan will exit negative interest rates if wage negotiations result in significant wage hikes. This discouraged traders from making aggressive bearish bets on the yen.
Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar (USD) was weighed down by disappointing macro data on Friday and hawkish comments from several influential officials at the Federal Reserve (FED). Traders also appear unwilling to wait for more clues on when the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates, which further limits the upside of the USD/JPY pair. There aren’t any relevant U.S. economic data releases on Monday, so market focus will remain on Tuesday’s Tokyo core CPI report. Investors will look for further clues this week from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s semi-annual congressional testimony on Wednesday and Thursday, followed by U.S. non-farm payrolls (NFP) data on Friday.
