Japanese Yen Losses Draw Suspected Intervention After BoJ Outloo

6月28日

The risk around Friday's US non-farm payrolls number is to the downside and sales of

USDJPY
and

CADJPY
are likely to be the most interesting and more rewarding trades in this scenario, according to Spectra Markets' Brent Donnelly.

"I don't think there is a major skew to FX or bond positioning going into NFP. Both USD bulls and USD bears continue to dabble tentatively, and then get rinsed. Over and over," said Donnelly, president at Spectra Markets and a veteran FX trader.

"With big picture carry momentum halted by the MXN move, and yields already softening substantially this week, the downside in CADJPY and USDJPY on a weak release are most interesting. CADJPY looks 200 points too high to me," he added.

Donnelly says the rise in initial unemployment claims revealed in the Department of Labor's weekly reports during May and falls in job openings highlighted by recent Bureau of Labor Statistics JOLTS surveys, imply a soft payrolls number on Friday.

Consensus is looking for non-farm payrolls to rise 185,000 for May on Friday, up from 175,000 in April, but Donnelly says this positive skew is surprising in light of survey data pointing toward a softening of the labor market over recent weeks.

"I would think the exact opposite makes sense and a 4.0% unemployment rate is much more likely than 3.8%," Donnelly said.


USDJPY
was quoted 0.21% higher around 156.24 on Thursday while

CADJPY
was 0.09% higher around 114.02.