USD/JPY edges towards 150 even as Japan falls into a recession

The USD/JPY seemed to ignore the warnings from Japanese officials yesterday regarding the exchange rate. That said it did struggle to make any further progress towards 151. The drop in the wider dollar and lower US yields was entirely responsible for that though. The USD/JPY later closed in the US at 150.58. However, it has dropped back close to 150 today and that fall comes despite data out of Japan much earlier today showing that the economy entered into a technical recession at the end of last year. Japanese Q4 growth was much weaker than forecast, falling by 0.4%, where a rise of 1.1% was forecast. This news later helped to send the Nikkei 225 to a new 34 year high, at 38,188. The Nikkei managed to close above 38k, with its highest daily close since 1990, at 38,157. Well despite that the USD/JPY has tracked lower and the dollar has come close to a test of that 150 level a short while ago. The lack of traction is mostly about the dollar it seems and not the Yen, because outside of a potential BOJ intervention threat, there is little reason to buy the Japanese currency on the back of that GDP data. The USD/JPY has fallen to a low so far at 150.06 . It is just now trading at 150.16