The Japanese Yen continued to make grounds in Asian trading, establishing itself as the assumed go to safe haven, now that the Dollar has, for the time being at least, lost favour amongst traders. After declines made following on from comments by Ben Bernanke, the US Federal Reserve Chairman. The USD was put under further pressure in the markets Japanese Retail Sales Figures coming in higher than expected and weak figures for factory orders for durable goods in the world’s largest economy, all combining to make the Japanese Yen – the go-to safe haven currency in today’s markets.

The Commerce Department in the US announced yesterday that durable goods orders rose 2.2% for February. Although a notable improvement on January’s revised 3.6% decline figure. The number failed to meet the forecasted 3.0% increase. This contributed push investors away from the greenback, but it was the release from the Japanese trade ministry, confirming an increase in retail sales figures, which helped push investors towards the JPY. Retail Sales were up 3.5% for February from a year earlier indicating that consumer confidence which is very important in the consumer driven economy of Japan, is improving. Analysts were forecasting an increase of around the 1.3% mark and the better than expected news sent the Nikkei 225, the Japanese share index, rising to pre-earthquake/tsunami levels. However, some swift investor movement into the Yen saw the Nikkei 225 end the session down 0.67%, valued at 10114.79. The USD/JPY was currently down 0.63%, trading at 82.38 whilst against the Euro, the US Dollar was down 0.06%, trading at 1.3324.

Today looks like being a volatile day for the USD with plenty of profit opportunities for the alert binary trader. At 1.30 pm GMT you have a raft of data released in the US including GDP, jobless claims – initial and continuing, as well as a public speech by Fed Chairman Bernanke at 5.45 pm GMT.

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