• USD/JPY softens to around 159.35 in Thursday’s Asian session. 
• Trump said the ceasefire agreed on April 7 would stay in place indefinitely. 
• The BoJ is widely expected to maintain its policy rate at 0.75% during the April meeting.

The USD/JPY pair loses traction to near 159.35 during the Asian trading hours on Thursday. US President Donald Trump’s extension of a ceasefire with Iran weighs on the US Dollar (USD) against the Japanese Yen (JPY). The preliminary reading of the S&P Global Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) will be published later on Thursday. 

Trump said on Tuesday that he is extending the ceasefire with Iran while awaiting a “unified proposal” from Tehran. Iran vowed not to reopen the Strait of Hormuz amid the US naval blockade despite the ceasefire extension. Earlier, the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that she doesn’t view Iran’s assertion that it seized two ships in the Strait of Hormuz as a violation of the ceasefire. 

Meanwhile, Lebanon will push for a one-month extension of the current truce with Israel during a new round of meetings in Washington on Thursday. Talks between Lebanon and Israel on April 14 were their first in decades, and the US soon after announced the 10-day truce, set to expire on Sunday.

Bank of Japan (BoJ) Governor Kazuo Ueda avoided signaling an April rate hike, citing high economic uncertainty from the “negative supply shock” of the war. Financial markets now widely anticipate the Japanese central bank to hold rates steady until at least June 2026. 

Markets are now pricing in nearly a 72%-77% probability of a rate increase in May, with expectations for a hike of nearly 99% by June, according to Reuters. 

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