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USDJPY – Much like the rest of the dollar-denominated majors, USDJPY has been consigned to range trading. However, unlike EURUSD and GBPUSD, the yen-based pair is building up considerable pressure in a rising trend channel that has met substantial resistance in 108.50. Now, with little more than 200-points of room to work with, a breakout seems like a very realistic threat. In fact, the potential seems so great that even speculative traders seem to be aware of the risk. The USDJPY Speculative Sentiment Index ratio was just off of parity at 1.01 as spot was recently seen hovering in the middle of its quickly dwindling range. It is interesting to note that positioning trends have been steadily heading to this split since the pair failed to push through 108.50 back in mid-June. The breakdown shows long positions are 0.7% higher than yesterday and 14.3% stronger on the week. Alternatively, shorts eased back 1% from Wednesday and dropped 7.8% from last week. Despite the lack of a consistent forecast for the eventual USDJPY breakout however, traders are not shy about placing their bets with open interest actually up 0.5% on the week and 2.9% above the monthly average. Though a new leg of a major trend seems near, retail positioning gives us little clue as to its direction.