Can You Feel the (volatility) Squeeze?

Over the past five days, USD/JPY has been trading in a very narrow range - setting up a nice volatility squeeze. The Bollinger Bands on the 4HR and 1HR are getting increasingly tighter as the stalemate between the two currencies lingers, waiting to be resolved one way or another.

It's hard to tell which way the tie will break. On the one hand, the Yen is strong and seems to somehow keep getting stronger. On the other hand, the pair is deep within intervention territory and the BOJ keeps signaling more intervention, despite previous failed attempts, is on the table.

From a trade perspective, the plan is simple - set the risk of going long at around 76.30 where current support (and latest intervention level) still holds and go long. Or, if the price breaks below this level, wait for a pullback to what should now act as resistance, and short with a very well defined risk

Commitment of Traders (COT) Reports - 08/02/2011

Here are the COT net positions as of Aug. 02. You can see that even pre-S&P rating cut which happened on Friday, the USD is seriously losing steam. This means that the likely scenario in the chaos that we'll be facing in the next few weeks, will see the greenback losing more grounds to the CHF, and JPY.