USD/JPY Price Analysis: Intraday uptick falters near 200-hour SMA, ahead of 108.00 mark

• USD/JPY continued with its struggle to make it through 108.00 mark.
• The set-up warrants some caution before placing aggressive bets.

The USD/JPY pair failed to capitalize on its early uptick to the 108.00 neighbourhood and has now retreated around 35 pips from the Asian session swing highs. The uptick faltered ahead of 200-hour SMA, which is closely followed by the 108.10 supply zone.

The mentioned region should now act as a key pivotal point for short-term traders and help determine the pair's next leg of a directional move. Given last week's break through a 3-1/2-week-old descending trend-line, the near-term bias still seems tilted in favour of bulls.

However, technical indicators on the daily chart maintained their bearish bias and have again started gaining negative traction on hourly charts. The technical set-up warrants some caution before positioning for any further near-term appreciating move.

Hence, it will be prudent to wait for some strong follow-through buying beyond the 108.00-108.10 region in order to confirm prospects for any additional gains. Meanwhile, any subsequent slide might continue to find some support near the 107.00-106.95 region.

The latter marks monthly lows support, set on April 1 and retested on 15, which if broken might trigger some aggressive technical selling. The pair then might turn vulnerable to accelerate the fall further towards testing sub-106.00 levels in the near-term.

USD/JPY 1-hourly chart

Technical levels to watch