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Same week as the Fed: BoJ MPM 17–18 Sep, statement Friday. Policy rate still around 1.0%; a 25bp to 1.25% is widely expected (Reuters poll ~97% of economists). Path talk (another hike by year-end vs “one month early”) is the part that moves USDJPY after the fact.

Map, not a forecast
Spot spent last week two-way around the 154s after the squeeze from ~160 toward the low 153s / high 152s. Desks still talk ~152 as a test if yen stays bid, 155–156 if the BoJ sounds like a one-off. Intervention last month is history, not an entry. A Sunday bounce is not MoF.

Process
I do not buy USDJPY because “they intervened in August.” I do not short it because Katayama spoke. If I trade a Tokyo/London bounce it is against a defined range with a time stop — not a view on the next cheque.

Sources: BoJ calendar; Reuters poll 9–10 Sep. Not advice.

Treating 154 as a Fed-USD bounce or as a BoJ-pause short into Friday? Different stop.

LondonScalper wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2026 3:41 pm Same week as the Fed: BoJ MPM 17–18 Sep, statement Friday. Policy rate still around 1.0%; a 25bp to 1.25% is widely expected (Reuters poll ~97% of economists). Path talk (another hike by year-end vs “one month early”) is the part that moves USDJPY after the fact.

Map, not a forecast
Spot spent last week two-way around the 154s after the squeeze from ~160 toward the low 153s / high 152s. Desks still talk ~152 as a test if yen stays bid, 155–156 if the BoJ sounds like a one-off. Intervention last month is history, not an entry. A Sunday bounce is not MoF.

Process
I do not buy USDJPY because “they intervened in August.” I do not short it because Katayama spoke. If I trade a Tokyo/London bounce it is against a defined range with a time stop — not a view on the next cheque.

Sources: BoJ calendar; Reuters poll 9–10 Sep. Not advice.

Treating 154 as a Fed-USD bounce or as a BoJ-pause short into Friday? Different stop.

The 25bp hike to 1.25% is fully priced in. The entire directional bet is on Ueda's forward guidance. But Wednesday's FOMC and the WTI tape will dictate the level USD/JPY actually launches from when Friday's statement hits.

Here is how the sequence risk forces your hand:

The Wednesday Fed wipeout: If you build a short here at 154 betting on a hawkish BoJ trajectory, a hawkish Fed plus the energy squeeze can drive this straight through 155.50. Your stop gets hunted by the USD leg 48 hours before Ueda even takes the podium.

The BoJ "one-off" premium: If Powell stays balanced and spot drifts back into the low 153s, then you can construct a clean BoJ ticket. But the asymmetry favors the topside if the BoJ sounds remotely cautious. The market is heavily positioned for yield convergence; if Tokyo signals 1.25% is the terminal rate for the year, the fast money will violently unwind those 152 expectations and rip the pair back toward 156.

Separating the tickets: Like you said, August intervention is a historical footnote, not a thesis. I am not holding a 154 entry across an open-ended 48-hour central bank collision. If I take the Tokyo/London bounce post-Fed, it gets a tight time stop to validate the flow. If it hangs, I scratch the trade.

The process is sequential: trade the FOMC digest on Wednesday, flatten the book, then trade the BoJ on Friday from wherever the new structural base settles.

Plus i think it will interesting to watch swaps on this pair, because i remember, that once i hold my sell position for more that 3 months it costed me like 5k$ in swaps out of my 10k$ profit.

If the Fed squeezes spot up to 155.80 by Thursday's NY close, are you stepping in to fade it ahead of Friday, or assuming the USD leg has taken permanent control of the pair?

PTScalper wrote:I am not holding a 154 entry across an open-ended 48-hour central bank collision. If I take the Tokyo/London bounce post-Fed, it gets a tight time stop to validate the flow.

Sequential tickets — Fed first, flatten, then BoJ from the new base — is the only process that survives this week on USDJPY.

A 154 short into Wednesday is a USD-leg bet dressed as a BoJ thesis. If Powell and the energy tape shove spot through 155.50, you’ve paid the stop before Ueda speaks. I keep the same rule: no multi-day hold across both events. Post-Fed bounce gets a time stop; if flow doesn’t validate, scratch.

Swaps are a fair reminder on this pair, but for a two-day window they’re a rounding error next to event slippage. The real cost is holding conviction across two separate central-bank books.

If Fed squeezes toward 155.80 by Thursday NY close, I do not fade ahead of Friday as a default. That’s still USD control until BoJ resets the level. Do you require a post-Fed structural base before any BoJ ticket, or will you fade an extended 155 handle on Thursday if the book looks stretched?

BoJ week: 152 vs 155 are different trades

When a BoJ hike is widely expected, path talk moves USDJPY after the fact. I will not treat every handle the same. A reclaim/rejection plan around one zone is not automatically valid at another hundreds of points away after a squeeze.

Frankfurt approach: pre-define which map I am trading before the statement Friday, cut size on policy days, and avoid stacking BoJ risk on top of Fed-hour chaos in the same breath. If I do not have a written invalidation for the handle in play, I am flat.

Rumour headlines are not M1 triggers.

If I am already flat for Fed risk the same week, BoJ may simply be a second flat. Not every scheduled event deserves a ticket from this desk.

I also pre-decide whether I am trading the yen cross as USD story or local BoJ story; mixing them mid-ticket creates confused stops.

Which side of the map are you actually prepared to trade this week — the lower reclaim story or the higher continuation — and is that choice written down?

PTScalper wrote:Same week as the Fed: BoJ MPM 17–18 Sep , statement Friday. Policy rate still around 1.0% ; a 25bp to 1.25% is widely expected (Reuters poll ~97% of economists).

On fading 155.80 into Friday: I wouldn't. The level isn't the problem; the timing is. Holding a short across the BoJ means exposure to a decision that usually lands around Tokyo lunchtime, the small hours in London, followed by Ueda's press conference in the Tokyo afternoon. By the time London opens, the first and often largest reaction is done, and a stop left overnight gets whatever price the thin Asian book offers. Near 156 there's also the intervention question, a tail risk that doesn't respect anyone's stop.

Your swap point deserves more attention than it usually gets. With the policy gap still around two and a half percentage points even after a hike to 1.25%, a short USDJPY position pays carry every night, and on a multi-week hold that becomes a real part of the result, as your example shows. Anyone planning to hold a yen-bullish view for more than a few days should put the swap rate in the plan next to the stop.

For a London scalper, my approach would be to let Friday's Tokyo session set the new range and then trade the London morning from there.