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The US Dollar is broadly higher at the start of the trading week amid hopes that a bit of the so-called “Trump trade” may come to fruition. Markets hoped fiscal stimulus via tax cuts, deregulation and infrastructure spending after the Republican triumphed in last year’s presidential election. Prospects for the first of these brightened after the Senate adopted a 2018 budget resolution last week.
The Yen is weakest on the day after the coalition led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe retained a two-thirds parliamentary majority in a snap election over the weekend, opening the door for the administration to remain in place through 2021. The prospect of fiscal policy stability has pushed Nikkei 225 index futures sharply higher ahead of the opening bell in Tokyo, weighing on the perennially anti-risk Japanese unit.
Meanwhile, the New Zealand Dollar continues to suffer after last week’s news that opposition Labour emerged victorious in post-election coalition negotiations. Incoming Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has called capitalism “failure”, threatened to pull the island nation out of the TPP free trade accord and suggested a revision of the RBNZ’s mandate away from a strict focus on price stability.
DailyFX Economic Calendar: Asia Pacific (all times in GMT)
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IG Client Sentiment Index Chart of the Day: USD/JPY
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Retail trader data shows 48.4% of traders are net-long USD/JPY, with the ratio of traders short to long at 1.06 to 1. The number of traders net-long is 5.7% higher than yesterday and 7.7% higher from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 7.5% lower than yesterday and 18.7% lower from last week.
We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-short suggests USD/JPY prices may continue to rise. Yet traders are less net-short than yesterday and compared with last week. Recent changes in sentiment warn that the current USD/JPY price trend may soon reverse lower despite the fact traders remain net-short.
Five Things Traders are Reading
- Weekly Trading Forecast: Central Bank News Promises Fireworks by DailyFX Research Team
- Fed Chair Janet Yellen Wraps Up Week With Remarks in Washington by Daniel Dubrovsky, DailyFX Research
- EUR/USD Technical Outlook: Euro Price Pattern Colliding with ECB by Paul Robinson, Market Analyst
- Canadian Dollar Falls on Energy-Driven Headline CPI by Dylan Jusino, DailyFX Research
- USD/JPY Grabs Highest Level in 3 Months by Jeremy Wagner, CEWA-M
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