2025/08/14 USD/JPY Trade Strategy

Today's USD/JPY call: Sell.

The current price zone at the yellow line is where the daily chart’s reasons to buy are only just holding on.
If price breaks below here, we’re looking at a move lower on the weekly chart level.
For day trading, I’ll wait for a retracement and look to go short.

Scenario A
If price gets above the blue line at 147.2, the bearish bias is over for now.
It turns into range-bound action on the 1-hour level.
With enough momentum there could be a chance to buy, but there’s also selling pressure from the green line at 147.5 just above, so I have a feeling simply buying won’t be easy.
There’s also plenty of room to run up to the blue line, so if price makes it back there, I think the market conditions will have changed.
If buying, the target is 147.5

Scenario B
By the book, I’d wait for a retracement to the blue line S/R, but given the room to run, I don’t think the chances of price coming back that far are high.
In that case, the first candidate for the retracement is the price zone in the light red circle.
The second candidate is a shallow retracement followed by a drop from the pink line.
In that case, I’d like to wait for a double top to form before acting.
The target is the recent low at the yellow line, 146.4, but if shorting from the pink line, it’s on the assumption that price breaks below it.
In that case, maybe around 145.9.

Scenario C
If price breaks the yellow line from here, the plan is the same: wait for a retracement.
The first candidate is a short once the yellow line has turned into S/R.
The target is 145.9

Review

No trade

I was waiting for price to come back once more based on Scenario B, but it made a marginal break below and the move was hard to read.
After that, it jumped on the initial jobless claims release at 9:30 pm JST (12:30 UTC), and that was it.

Once price starts moving like this, it becomes technically hard for it to go either up or down, so it tends to shift from a range into consolidation.
With the summer holiday period on top of that, I don’t expect much movement from tomorrow onward.