USD/JPY consolidated near 2-1/2 month tops, US GDP awaited

   •  A combination of diverging forces fails to provide any fresh bullish impetus.
   •  Strong follow-through USD buying partly offset by retracing US bond yields.
   •  Investors also seemed reluctant to place aggressive bets ahead of US GDP.

The USD/JPY pair now seems to have entered a bullish consolidation phase and was seen oscillating in a range near 2-1/2 month tops, just below mid-109.00s.

With investors looking past today's BOJ monetary policy decision, a strong follow-through US Dollar buying interest helped the pair to recover previous session's modest retracement slide to the 109.00 handle 

Adding to this, the prevalent positive trading sentiment around European equity markets weighed on the Japanese Yen's safe-haven demand and further collaborated to the pair's up-move to its highest level since February 8. 

Meanwhile, a softer tone around the US Treasury bond yields did little to provide any fresh bullish impetus and capped any additional gains. Moreover, investors also seemed reluctant to place aggressive bets ahead of the advance US Q1 GDP growth figures and eventually led to a subdued/range-bound price action on the last trading day of the week. 

Technical levels to watch

A convincing break through the 109.50-60 region now seems to pave the way for an extension of the pair’s bullish trajectory towards reclaiming the key 110.00 psychological mark en-route the very important 200-day SMA hurdle near the 110.25 region.

On the flip side, the 109.00 handle might continue to act as an immediate support, which if broken might prompt some long-unwinding trade and drag the pair further towards 108.60-40 horizontal support.