Danske Research maintains a tactical and a strategic bias on USD/JPY.
"USD/JPY increased to the 132-133 range in the last couple of days as the Japanese fiscal year is coming to an end, bringing some volatility to the JPY broadly. Additionally, investors preferred the JPY relative to the USD as a safe haven during the banking sector turmoil, which has been settling lately and hence investors are moving away from the JPY in favour of riskier assets," Danske notes.
"Increasing USD/JPY one-month volatility suggests markets believe the likelihood of a policy change on the new BOJ governor, Ueda's, first policy meeting is growing. These movements were likely fuelled by the new deputy governor Shinichi Uchida, who on Wednesday communicated that tweaks to BOJ policy could "come as a surprise" when the BOJ thinks the timing is right, which basically makes sense since it is extremely tricky to conduct any form of forward guidance with such unconventional monetary policy as the YCC is. Any hints about monetary policy tightening via YCC beforehand would result in a heavy bond sell-off. We still like being short USD/JPY both on a tactical and strategic horizon," Danske adds.