USD/JPY faces a volatile month as Japan prepares for a snap election on 8 February, with outcomes potentially swaying the yen depending on LDP gains and policy expectations, ING's FX analyst Chris Turner notes.

Political uncertainty keeps USD/JPY on edge

"It is hard to have a conviction call on USD/JPY right now. It seems the Japanese lower house will be dissolved next week and a snap election will be held on 8 February. The playbook assumes that any big improvement in the LDP's fortunes is a yen-negative on the view that looser fiscal and monetary policy will be favoured and more likely. What constitutes a big improvement for the LDP? Probably a 34-seat gain such that the LDP party itself commands a simple majority."

"However, we have all been surprised by Japanese politics before. And there is little concern that now the former LDP coalition party (Komeito) has teamed up with the main opposition party (CDP), the opposition could offer stiffer resistance. An LDP failure to convert PM Takaichi's strong popularity ratings into more seats could end up sending USD/JPY lower again."

"There's also the FX intervention threat, and one outlandish idea we presented in this month's FX Talking was that of joint Fed-BoJ intervention to sell USD/JPY, which would be a game-changer. Suffice to say that USD/JPY looks like a volatile story over the next month and that even at 8.5%, one-month traded USD/JPY volatility does not seem especially expensive."