USD/JPY quickly reverses post-NFP dip to 107 neighborhood

   •  Disappointing headline NFP print/unemployment rate fails to impress USD bulls. 
   •  Average hourly earnings meet expectations but did little to revive USD demand.

The USD/JPY pair finally broke down of its European session consolidation phase and dropped back to the 107.00 handle post-NFP.

The pair met with some fresh supply after the latest US monthly jobs report showed that the economy added only 103K in March, falling short of consensus estimated pointing to 193K jobs and worse than last month's upwardly revised figure of 326K.

Adding to the disappointment, the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, as against a dip to 4.0% expected, and average hourly earnings, recording a growth of 2.7%, also failed to impress the US Dollar bulls. 

The downfall, however, turned out to be short-lived and the pair quickly bounced back to 107.30 area as the data was not weak enough to dampen prospects of any further Fed rate hikes in 2018. 

Hence, the focus now shifts to the Fed Chair Jerome Powell's scheduled speech, where any clues over a steeper Fed monetary policy tightening cycle might trigger a fresh leg of up-move for the greenback.

Technical levels to watch

Immediate resistance remains near mid-107.00s, above which a fresh bout of short-covering could lift the pair beyond 107.75-80 intermediate resistance towards reclaiming the 108.00 handle. 

On the flip side, the 107.00 handle might continue to act as an immediate support, which if broken could prompt some fresh weakness and drag the pair further towards mid-106.00s.