Yen remains mute over mixed economic docket

Several economic dockets were released late night yesterday that painted a mixed picture over the Japanese economy.

• National CPI grew at 2.4% YoY basis in January and core CPI remained stable at 2.2%.

• Tokyo CPI also remained stable at 2.2% and core CPI remained stable too at 1.7%.

• House hold sector did not perform well, overall spending fell by 5.1% larger than the previous month's fall of 3.4% from a year ago. It has been falling since May 2014 and remains one of the top concerns of Bank of Japan (BOJ), as indicated in recent speech. 

• Unemployment rate which has been very stable in Japan also ticked up to 3.6% from a previous 3.4%.

• Industrial production grew by 4% mom but fell by 2.6% on a yearly basis. 

• Retail trade also fell by 1.3% mom.

Yen remained overall unimpressed over the release of the dockets but Nikkei so far today failed to build up against its yesterday's massive gain. Yen even performed well amongst majors after the release of positive economic docket from US yesterday. Yen is currently trading at 119.3 & Nikkei at 18800.

The effect of the BOJ asset purchase is yet to surface clearly and Yen is expected to continue its range trade with bearish bias until further queue arrives.