USD/JPY holds weaker for third straight session, 111.00 at risk

The USD/JPY pair traded with negative bias for the third consecutive session and extended its corrective slide from monthly tops touched on Tuesday.

The pair on Wednesday failed to build on its recovery move despite of an unexpected rise in existing home sales data from the US as investors now seemed concerned that continuous slide in oil prices would be bad for inflation or might even lead to disinflationary pressure. 

This has raised skepticism over the prospects of additional Fed rate-hike action this year and the same is evident from a softer tone surrounding the US Treasury bond yields, which is eventually weighing on the US Dollar. 

Adding to this, the prevalent cautious environment further supported the Japanese Yen's safe-haven appeal and collaborated to the offered tone surrounding the major.

Today's US economic docket features the release of usual weekly jobless claims data and would be looked upon for some short-term trading impetus later during the NA session. Also in focus would be a scheduled speech by Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell.

In the meantime, broader market risk-sentiment would remain a key determinant of the pair's movement through European session on Thursday. 

Technical levels to watch

A strong follow through selling pressure below 111.00-110.90 area is likely to accelerate the slide towards 110.50-45 intermediate support en-route 110.30 level.

On the upside, any recovery move now seems to confront resistance near 111.35 area, above which a bout of short-covering could lift the pair beyond 111.55-60 resistance area towards its next resistance near 111.75-80 zone.