Japanese Yen Rests Hope on Household Spending

To top that off, industrial production increased a mere 1.4 percent in the month of December.  Though still positive, it fell short of the market’s 1.8 percent forecast.  There is still hope for the Yen though this week.  Like many of the other countries around the world, the economic calendar is heavy.  Should household spending rise as strongly as they are expected to tonight (market forecast is positive 2.5 percent), then we may see our first retracement in USD/JPY in five days.  Meanwhile China announced over the weekend that the dollar makes up “much less” than 50 percent of China’s currency basket. They also said that they do not intend to accumulate more foreign exchange reserves.  News such as this has only one implication for the US dollar and that is negative - so there is good reason to expect the USD/CNY pair to continue to sell-off in 2006.