Japanese Retail Sales beat Estimates

The Japanese yen (USD/JPY) ignored mixed data out of the island nation, as traders were hit with a plethora of data. The Japanese yen did gain a tad after retail sales beat expectations, before settling back into its current trade area.

Japanese Retail sales rose 3.2 percent in April. That was above both the 2.3 percent rise expected. In March, there was a 2.1 percent gain. It was also the best month seen since 2015. Still, does any of this mean that the consumer has a willingness to spend and will impact tepid consumer prices? Thereby, affecting the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy?

The answer is, not by a lot. Retail sales may be solid, but household spending fell 1.4 percent in the month April. This was more than twice the 0.7 percent expected.

In other economic data, the April jobless rate was 2.8 percent. This met forecasts and unchanged from March. In better news, the job/applicant ratio rose to 1.48. While this is the highest reading since February 1974. This is an important, if not incremental step in a nearly uninterrupted rise from mid-2009.

Japanese yen ignores the Data

The yen is not paying much attention to this data. Against the euro, the yen remains heavy. Yesterday, as expected, European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi struck a dovish monetary policy note in Brussels yesterday during a speech before the European Parliament.

There was also some Federal Reserve comments just before the data crossed the wires. St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard made comments overnight. Bullard thinks interest rates are just where they should be. If they should rise again, he does not think the next rate hike will be by much. Mr. Bullard is not a voting member of this year’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).