GBP/JPY Floundered Near 192.00 After Suspected BoJ Interventions Flattened Markets

By Joshua Gibson of FX Street

Saturday, May 4, 2024 4:14 PM EST

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The GBP/JPY currency pair appeared to be lethargic near the 192.00 handle on Friday.
Overactive BoJ financing reports seemed to hint towards Forex intervention.
Coming up next week: BoE rate call, UK GDP.

The GBP/JPY currency pair was seen trading flat near the 192.00 handle on Friday, as the Bank of Japan has been suspected of directly intervening in Forex markets to prop up the battered Japanese yen.

According to disclosure reporting from the BoJ, the Japanese central bank overspent on uncategorized financing operations by around 9 trillion yen. The massive overshoot in BoJ financing operations strongly implies direct market intervention on behalf of the yen, though no official statements have been made in either direction.

Coming up next week, The Bank of England (BoE) delivers its latest rate call and economic outlook statement, with late next week seeing a fresh update on UK economic growth with a quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) update. UK wuarter-over-quarter GDP is currently forecast to rebound to 0.4% versus the previous quarter.

Japanese markets will return to the fold after a raft of holiday observations this past week, but Japanese data releases remain limited to low-tier prints. Investors will be keeping an eye out for any official statements from the BoJ on market operations in the days to come.

GBP/JPY Technical Outlook

The GBP/JPY pair kicked off the trading week by hitting a 34-year peak bid of 200.60 before strong yen activity dragged the pair down nearly 900 pips, or -4.4%, peak-to-trough, hitting a bottom bid near 191.80. The pair settled into a holding pattern near that level.

Despite a recent knockdown from multi-decade highs, the Guppy remained firmly planted in bull country, as the pair was seen trading well above the 200-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) at 185.70. The pair is still up nearly 7% since the start of 2024, and is still a scorching 54% from the 2020 low near 124.00.