April 30 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar may extend gains to the strongest since August 2008 if it closes above 95 yen, rising through the top of a weekly ichimoku cloud and its 21-month average, said Barclays Capital, citing trading patterns. The dollar, set for a second monthly gain versus Japan’s currency, “is testing its weekly cloud cap,” at 94.30 yen, strategists led by Jordan Kotick, the New York-based head of technical strategy, wrote in an e-mailed note. The currency’s 21-month moving average is at 94.76 yen, Bloomberg data show. “Both these trend-following techniques have a remarkably good track record of calling one- to three-year U.S. dollar moves over the last 25 years,” the analysts wrote. A close above 95 yen “would target 110.” The dollar traded at 94.02 yen as of 9:29 a.m. in Tokyo, little changed from yesterday New York. It advanced 0.5 percent this month and is forecast to end the year at 100 yen, according to the median estimate of economists compiled by Bloomberg. The greenback reached 110.29 yen on Aug. 25, 2008. “The April month-end close promises to be an important one for the dollar,” Kotick and his team wrote. An ichimoku chart analyzes the midpoints of historic highs and lows. The cloud is the area between the first and second leading span lines on the chart and is used to show areas where buy or sell orders may be clustered. In technical analysis, investors and analysts study charts of trading patterns and prices to forecast changes in a security, commodity, currency or index. To contact the reporters on this story: Candice Zachariahs in Sydney at czachariahs2@bloomberg.net;

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