The JPY was in demand from early in the session this morning, leading to falls in dollar-yen and yen cross although aussie-yen rallied off early lows after the release of Chinese trade data for December. Dollar-yen opened at Y118.34 this morning and marked an early high of Y118.49. The pair turned down after that as Nikkei futures weakened and oil prices fell, dragging yen crosses down. Dollar-yen fell below Y118.00, as stops linked to a to a downside leg of an Y118.00/Y120 option structure were triggered. Dollar-yen fell further as aussie-yen and euro-yen also retreated, with the former running into strong sell orders from Japanese accounts. Dollar-yen hit a low of Y117.73 while aussie-yen traded Y96.05. The cross rebounded sharply after that as the aussie rallied following the release of Chinese trade data, hitting a new session high of Y96.64 in the late morning. Dollar-yen however, failed to see much of a bounce off its low but managed a small bounce back above Y118.00 in the afternoon despite Japanese stocks still down by about 1.5%, to last trade at Y118.22. Decent support lies at Y117.55 marking the 61.8% fibo of the pair’s Y115.18 to Y121.84 rise.
