US Job Data

 Every first Friday of the month, US non-farm payrolls report is released USD/JPY should be the best currency pair to trade of on the release of the report since it should have the most logical reaction to the data.  This means that if payrolls beat expectations, USD/JPY should rise and if it misses, USD/JPY should fall.

During the Asian sesssion, the market has been squaring up ahead of payroll numbers , with some predictions of a -1million number. 

The CHF was the lead currency today during early European session. A very quiet morning was enlivened when EUR/CHF stops below 1.4650 were triggered. This in turn set off USD selling against all the majors with the EUR and AUD regaining most of the ground lost in late NY trade yesterday and USD/JPY returning to its lows below 98.00. It was less a case a risk aversion, and more a case of stop-loss hunting and position squaring ahead of an payroll numbers which analysts are really unsure about- predicting the real number.  

Technically, USDJPY hit the low at point C (10:GMT). At that level, it is the 100% fibo expansion of A-B. (See the 15 min chart above). A  harami and almost a tweezer  bottom signaling a reversal of trend.  The cross reacted strongly on reversal with a long bullish candle blowing out the 23.6% retracement of A-C and the previous high at  13:30 GMT( released of US jobs report). 

My 1 min scalp is as follows: (refer to the 1 min chart below)

I don’t trade 15-30 mins before and after major economic news such as US job data (the colored rectangle). The job data of 651k drop came almost as a relief as we are expecting a worst number of 1 M.   US equities rise boosted by a rise in US consumer credit that sparked hopes that consumer spending would rise as well.. The USDJPY gapped up at 13:30 GMT and than gyrating widely for about 10 min. I took the buy signal at 13:46 GMT after the cross has stabilized for 5 min. The cross managed to brush through the round number  97.20 and expected to test the previous high of  97.32. With no sign of reversing my next target is at 97.50.  At that level prices stalled and moved sideway and I exited my position with a profit of  50 pips.