USD/JPY is struggling for a direction after the overnight positive move and remained confined in a consolidation. The upbeat market mood undermined the safe-haven JPY and extended some support to the pair.
The USD/JPY pair maintains a neutral mode in the near-term, with the risk focused to the downside. In the 4-hour chart, the pair is trading below a 3 week old descending trend-line. The USD/JPY pair lacked any firm directional bias and remained trading in a narrowing triangle pattern above the 104.00 mark through the Asian session.
Technical indicators have turned flat around their midlines, indicating the absence of direction interest. The pair needs to advance beyond 104.30 and breaching the upper boundary of the trend-line to become bullish, while bears will take control on a break below 103.70.
The outlook for USD is mixed and only a clear break below 103.70 or above 104.30 would indicate the start of a more directional price action. Since then, USD traded mostly sideways, the support at 103.70 appears to be more vulnerable.
