FX News

Two New Readings of the 200-Day. Only One of Them Says Which Average It Is.

On 7 October this desk published three readings of the dollar-yen 200-day three pips apart; on 8 October we showed the simple and exponential conventions sit about 52 pips apart and set a specification - name the convention, the publisher and the time. Two publishers we had not read then give the figure now: 158.53 on 7 October, labelled a simple average, and 158.54 on 10 October, labelled nothing. One passes the test, one does not, and the difference decides Monday. Against the simple band, 158.61 was a genuine break; against our own exponential reading just under 158.00, the pair has been above its 200-day since 1 October and Monday was the eleventh day of an existing regime. We published the break without saying which. Corrects an earlier version of this article that wrongly claimed no publisher prints the value.

The Number That Would Settle It Is Three Numbers, Three Pips Apart

The two-hundred-day moving average was the one number that would settle yesterday's four-way ambiguity about a one-pip overshoot.

Three publishers give it as 158.50, 158.52 and 158.53, and Tokyo's 158.51 high fell in the gap and equals none of them. Worse for us: our own published resistance level is 158.50, identical to MUFG's reading, so our level holding and the average holding are the same sentence written twice. London then took the pair to 157.85, a 66-pip day against Tokyo's 41 - on French bonds, not on Japan.

The Yen Is 98 Pips Above the Rate Check and 97 Below 160

Tokyo opens with dollar-yen just under 159.00 after printing 159.03, its first 159 handle since 2 September.

Spot sits 98 pips above the 18 September rate-check level and 97 below the round number — but the nearest level Japan actually acted at is 160.50, not 160.00. And the 200-day average everyone says broke is two different numbers.