Japanese Retail Sales, also known as Retail Trade according to the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Tourism, disappointed by falling well below expectations in the early hours of Wednesday. The annualized Retail Sales for the year ending December grew by only 2.1%, significantly below the forecasted 5.1% and further deteriorating from the previous period’s 5.3%.

The seasonally-adjusted figures for December revealed a 0.8% month-on-month decline in Japanese Retail Trade, in contrast to November’s 1.0% reading.

In response to this data, the USD/JPY pair is experiencing a downward movement, dipping towards 147.40 immediately after the release. This comes after the pair had a downside bounce from the 200-hour Simple Moving Average (SMA) in the prior session, just below the 148.00 handle.