Japanese Yen Technical Analysis: USD/JPY, EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY

USD/JPY, U.S. Dollar Talking Points:

• USD/JPY remains a big driver behind the U.S. Dollar as we’ve seen so far through 2025 trade.
• Bears had an open door to run with a break over the past two weeks but they were continually caught at 142.50 support, with another higher-low showing around the big figure last Wednesday and Thursday.
• Bulls haven’t exactly had a free run either, however, as the 145 level held the highs into last week’s close and brought a pullback to 144 in early-week trade. That zone, along with a Fibonacci retracement at 144.86, is now confluent with trendline resistance making up the symmetrical triangle.

USD/JPY continues to digest and at this point the pair remains in a symmetrical triangle formation. Normally, such digestion comes with no discernible bias, but given the prior trend, this could be qualified as a bear pennant formation. This would be the opposite of the bull pennant that showed in gold in Q4 of last year, which then led to topside breakouts in the metal in 2025.

This is more of a leaning than a hard set and fast rule, however, because all that we know for a fact is that price has been digesting with both higher-lows and lower-highs, and that doesn’t necessarily have to continue in the direction of the prior trend.

USD/JPY Daily Chart

On the bullish side, it was the 140 level that held the lows when tested in April, and so far that’s kept bears at bay, helping to build continually higher-highs and higher-lows, such as we saw last week with the 142.50 hold on Monday followed by a higher-low at 142.535 on Wednesday/Thursday.

A strong response to that sent price directly to 145.00, which has so far held as resistance, but even the response to that has seen a higher-low hold at 144.00. From shorter-term perspectives a bullish bias can be justified; and as I’ve been saying, I think this has a large drive with bigger picture USD themes, placing even more importance on the Wednesday US CPI report.

USD/JPY Four-Hour Chart

Chart prepared by James Stanley; data derived from Tradingview

EUR/JPY

EUR/JPY is on the verge of breakout which further illustrates that short-term theme of Yen-weakness looked at above on shorter-term USD/JPY charts. If we do end up seeing Yen-strength, I’m of the mind that EUR/JPY could be of attraction.

But given the current technical backdrop that would be difficult to justify at the moment as price has shown short-term higher-highs and lows and we have the building breakout backdrop on the daily chart below, which has tonalities of an inverse head and shoulders formation with a neckline at 165.21.

EUR/JPY Daily Chart

EUR/JPY Shorter-Term

To get bearish on EUR/JPY, the near-term bullish structure would need to see some damage. Until then, I would want to default to the bullish sequence that’s showing.

I have key resistance at 165.21, which has an open door to breakout potential if we do see buyers press. But it’s the support structure that’s of more interest as support from prior resistance at 164.64 is followed by 164.26.

As shown in the video, I’d need 164.26 to come into play, after which a bounce up to and a show of resistance at 164.64 opens the door for a lower-high and short-term bearish continuation.

EUR/JPY Four-Hour Chart

GBP/JPY

For Yen-weakness, my preference is still with GBP/JPY. The pair similarly holds breakout potential like the above setup in EUR/JPY. From the weekly chart below, we can see that price is in a familiar area that’s held the highs for three of the past four weeks. Bulls are already up there again and if we do see Yen-weakness take over, I like upside potential in GBP/JPY more than either of the above markets of USD/JPY or EUR/JPY.

GBP/JPY Weekly Chart

GBP/JPY Shorter-Term

From the daily chart we can see the struggle that bulls have had gaining acceptance above the 195.00 handle, which was resistance both on Wednesday and Thursday of last week. And so far for today, its an indecisive doji near the highs, which sets up that 195.00 level as deeper support potential. I think what’s notable here is the persistence that bulls have continued to show as given the higher-lows over the past four weeks, as that resistance in the 196.19-196.32 area has held the highs.

This takes on the form of an ascending triangle, which is often approached with aim of bullish breakouts.

And if bulls can force the break, the next major area of resistance potential on the chart is the 198.08 level, which is the top of the long-term gap in GBP/JPY.

GBP/JPY Daily Price Chart

--- written by James Stanley, Senior Strategist