• USD/JPY gains ground near 145.35 in Wednesday’s early Asian session.
• Fed Minutes indicated that the US central bank opened the door for a rate cut in September. 
• Japan’s Jibun Bank Manufacturing PMI rose to 49.5 in August vs. 49.8 expected; services PMI improved to 54.0 in August. 

The USD/JPY pair trades on a stronger note around 145.35 during the early Asian session on Thursday. A record of Japan’s trade deficit data has dragged the Japanese Yen (JPY) lower and supported USD/JPY. On Friday, traders will closely watch Bank of Japan (BoJ) Governor Kazuo Ueda's speech and the Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole. These events are likely to trigger the volatility in the market. 

The minutes of the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) July 30-31 meeting released Wednesday indicated that most Fed officials agreed last month that they would likely cut their benchmark interest rate at the upcoming meeting in September as long as inflation continued to cool. The policymakers kept their benchmark rate at 5.3% in July, which has stood for more than a year. Markets are fully pricing in a September cut, with a full percentage point worth of rate cuts anticipated by the end of this year. The rising expectation of a Fed rate cut might weigh on the Greenback and cap the upside of USD/JPY in the near term.