BoJ hike rates as anticipated, fail to lift the yenUSD/JPYOANDA:USDJPYWiseLeoTradingThe interplay between a cautious BoJ and a resolutely hawkish Fed continues to underpin USDJPY on rallies, with the policy and yield backdrop still skewed in favour of the dollar even as Japan inches away from ultra‑easy settings. BoJ rate hike: The BoJ delivered a widely flagged 25 bps hike at its June meeting, pushing the policy rate to 1% and marking another step away from its ultra‑easy framework, but Governor Ueda’s accompanying remarks kept the move firmly in the “gradual normalization” camp rather than signalling an aggressive cycle, as he stressed that real rates remain deeply negative, upside inflation risks from energy and wage dynamics warrant further vigilance, and any additional tightening will be data‑dependent and paced carefully to avoid derailing the recovery—leaving markets with a hawkish‑tilt message on inflation but still a very shallow implied path for future hikes, which in turn limits how far the yen can reprice purely on BoJ policy and keeps USDJPY sensitive to the wider U.S.–Japan rate and yield spread. Fed: anticipated a hawkish rate hold Markets are anticipating the Fed may hold interest rates unchanged in this week's meeting but may tend to more hawkish on the policy stance due to the recent broad-based inflation and resilient labor market, which may add further pressure on inflation on the demand side. As a result, the yen may remain weakening against the US dollar even after the BoJ rate hike due to the anticipated hawkish hold in the US. Technical Analyst Price is still trading above the rising EMA 78 and broadly respecting EMA 21 on pullbacks, which confirms an intact medium‑term uptrend and buy‑the‑dip bias while 159.10–159.80 holds as support. The recent consolidation just under 160.60 shows slowing upside momentum but not a trend break; as long as candles keep closing above EMA 78, dips toward the 159.80 zone look like trend‑pullbacks rather than reversals. A clean break and 4H close above 160.60 would likely trigger a fresh leg higher toward the next resistance around 161.80, whereas a sustained move below EMA 78 and 159.10 would be an early signal that the trend is topping out. By Van Ha Trinh - Financial Market Strategist at Exness