NZD/JPY: Kiwi non-reactive to Trade Balance miss, all eyes on BoJ rate call

• Kiwi Trade Balance disappoints, but a deeply bearish NZD can't sell any further.
• BoJ rate call, inflation figures to dominate Asia's Friday session.

The NZD/JPY is trading quietly heading into Friday's session, but sticking near recent lows just above the 77.00 handle.

The Kiwi failed to react noticeably to New Zealand Trade Balance figures, dipping for single-digit pips before recovering quickly. New Zealand's YoY Trade Balance declined by $3.42 billion, worse than the expected $-2.9 billion, while the previously reported figure was also revised further into the red at $-3.07 billion.

Traders are bracing for a busy Japan session that sees Tokyo CPI at 23:30 GMT before Thursday's midnight rollover, which is expected (or hoped) to remain steady at 0.8% YoY. Following that will be the headline event of the Bank of Japan's (BoJ) Rate Decision in Friday's early hours. While the BoJ is expected to remain stuck on rates for the foreseeable future, traders will be looking into the central bank's statements carefully to pick up ideas about what the BoJ plans to do in the future in terms of beginning to tighten up their hyper-easy monetary policy.

NZD/JPY Levels to watch

The pair has had a bearish run, declining for ten straight trading days, and the challenge for bears will be to pull together enough momentum to push the NZD/JPY into the last swing lows between 76.30 and 75.50, while bulls will have to work over the 50.0 Fibo level at 78.30 before being able to challenge the 200-day SMA at 79.10.