USD/JPY Price Analysis: Stretches rebounds from 50-SMA past 136.00

• USD/JPY grinds near intraday top after lackluster moves in the last two days.
• Sustained trading beyond key SMA, short-term important horizontal support keeps buyers hopeful.
• One-month-old ascending resistance line can challenge the latest run-up.

USD/JPY struggles to overcome the previous two-day inaction as bulls keep the reins around 136.30 during early Thursday. In doing so, the Yen pair prints mild gains after bouncing off the 50-bar Simple Moving Average (SMA) and a two-week-old horizontal support zone.

Not only a sustained recovery from the key technical levels but the easing bearish bias of the MACD signals also favor the USD/JPY pair buyers.

With this, the risk-barometer pair is well-set to poke an upward-sloping resistance line from early February, close to 137.30 by the press time,

It’s worth noting that the weekly top surrounding 136.90 and the 137.00 round figure could act as immediate resistances for the USD/JPY bulls to watch.

In a case where USD/JPY remains firmer past 137.30, the late 2022 peak surrounding 138.20 should return to the charts.

On the flip side, the 50-SMA level of near 135.40 acts as an adjacent support for the Yen pair. Following that, the aforementioned two-week-long horizontal support zone puts a floor under the USD/JPY price of around 135.05-25.

It should be noted that the 100-SMA level of 134.00 and the February 20 swing low of around 133.95 could act as the last defense of the USD/JPY buyers.

To sum up, USD/JPY is likely to remain firmer and can once again poke the key resistance line stretched from February.

USD/JPY: Four-hour chart

Trend: Limited upside expected