USD/JPY advances to fresh 12-day highs, closes in on 104.00
- USD/JPY is edging higher in the second half of the day.
- Wall Street's main indexes post strong gains on Monday.
- US Dollar Index stays in the positive territory after early slump.
The USD/JPY pair spent the first half of the day moving sideways near 103.50 on Monday but started to edge higher during the American trading hours and touched a new 12-day top at 103.90. As of writing, the pair was up 0.36% on the day at 103.86.
US stocks continue to push higher
With the sharp upsurge witnessed in Wall Street's main indexes confirming the dominance of risk flows at the start of the week, the JPY continues to have a difficult time finding demand. At the moment, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite indexes are up 0.85% and 0.9%, respectively. Furthermore, the 10-year US Treasury bond yield is rising more than 2% on the day, providing an additional boost to USD/JPY.
US President Donald Trump's decision to sign the coronavirus relief aid into law late on Sunday seems to be fueling the risk rally on Monday.
In the meantime, the US Dollar Index is clinging to small daily gains near 90.30 to allow USD/JPY to stay in the positive territory.
There won't be any significant macroeconomic data releases in the remainder of the week and the choppy trading action is expected to persist ahead of the New Year holiday.
Technical levels to watch for