USD/JPY trims a part of early losses, finds decent support near 103.00 mark

• USD/JPY remained under some selling pressure for the second straight session on Thursday.
• The JPY continues to benefit from the global flight to safety amid the prevailing risk-off mood.
• Sliding US bond yields undermined the USD demand and added to the intraday selling bias.

The USD/JPY pair recovered over 100 pips from the Asian session lows, albeit struggled to capitalize on the move and find acceptance above the 104.00 round-figure mark.

The pair added to the previous session's losses and remained under some selling pressure for the second consecutive session on Thursday amid the prevailing risk-off mood, which tends to underpin the Japanese yen's perceived safe-haven demand.

Coronavirus jitters benefitted safe-haven JPY

The global risk sentiment took a sharp knock after the World Health Organization on Wednesday declared the novel coronavirus a global pandemic. Adding to this, US President Donald Trump suspended all travel from Europe for 30 days in order to fight the virus outbreak.

The anti-risk flow was evident from a sea of red across the global equity markets and reinforced by a fresh leg down in the US Treasury bond yields. This coupled with fading optimism over Trump's proposed fiscal stimulus kept the US dollar bulls on the defensive.

The pair eroded a major part of Tuesday's strong intraday upsurge of nearly 400 pips but managed to find some support just ahead of the 103.00 round-figure mark. Meanwhile, the intraday bounce lacked any obvious catalyst and hence, runs the risk of fizzling out rather quickly.

Moving ahead, there isn't any major market moving economic data due for release from the US. Hence, any developments surrounding the coronavirus saga might continue to act as an exclusive driver of the broader market risk sentiment and produce some meaningful trading opportunities.

Technical levels to watch