USD/JPY struggling to register any meaningful recovery

The USD/JPY pair maintained its offered tone below 104.00 handle and is now heading toward the lower end of daily trading range amid prevalent risk-off sentiment.

Currently trading around 103.70-75 region, the pair has failed to attract any fresh buying interest as a sharp slide in European equity markets is driving investors towards perceived safety of the Japanese Yen. Earlier on Thursday, disappointing Chinese trade balance data resurfaced worries of a slowdown in the world's second largest economy and triggered the initial leg of weakness for the pair from the highest level since July 29.

Further downslide, however, has been limited on increasing bets of an eventual Fed rate-hike action by the end of this year. Wednesday's release of minutes from FOMC's latest meeting in September reaffirmed market expectations and helped the greenback to rise to multi-month highs during early Asian session on Thursday.

Next on tap would be weekly jobless claims data from the US ahead of Friday's key release of monthly retail sales, which would provide fresh impetus to the pair's near-term trajectory.

Technical levels to watch

Immediate support below 103.50 level is pegged at 100-day SMA near 103.35-30 region, which if broken seems to drag the pair back below 103.00 handle towards testing its next support near 102.85-80 zone.

On the upside, any recovery attempt is likely to confront resistance near 103.95-104.00 region and is followed by resistance at multi-month highs near 104.60-65 band.