Yesterday the USDJPY lacked direction until the New York session, with the market restricted mainly to the 145-yen range.

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for the U.S. in July that was announced at GMT 14:00 was poor, with an actual figure of 7.673 million compared to a forecast of 8.1 million. This was the factor that broke the USDJPY out of its range and led to the decline. It continued to fall until the end of the day's trading, closing at 143.72.

There is a view that the slowing of the U.S. job market and yesterday's fall in U.S. treasury yields makes it more likely that the September FOMC will cut interest rates significantly, which led to intensified selling of the dollar.

Today the USDJPY hit a low of 143.18 shortly after GMT 23:30, then reversed direction and began to rise.

Looking at the 1-hour chart of the USDJPY (as of GMT 04:55 on September 5), the middle line continues to trend down, indicating strong selling pressure.

(20-period Bollinger Band, showing ±1 and ±2 standard deviations)

Today's main economic indicators are as follows.

• GMT 12:15 U.S. August ADP employment change (MoM)
• GMT 12:30 U.S. Initial jobless claims for the previous week
• GMT 12:30 U.S. Continuing jobless claims for the previous week
• GMT 13:45 U.S. August Services Purchasing Managers Index (PMI, revised)
• GMT 13:45 U.S. August Composite Purchasing Managers Index (PMI, revised)
• GMT 14:00 U.S. August ISM Services PMI