1.   The dollar has steadily strengthened against the yen in recent weeks.

2.   Also, tumbling currencies and stock markets elsewhere in Asia could weigh on the yen in the days ahead, analysts said.

3.   American players pull down big yen in Japan.

4.   An effective overlay hedge against a rising dollar could be achieved by selling deutsche marks and yen in the forward market.

5.   An effective currency overlay strategy set last year would have protected U.S. institutional investors against the rise of the dollar against the deutsche mark and yen in past months.

6.   Analysts said the Bank of Japan will likely keep interest rates low to help financial institutions write off trillions of yen in bad loans.

7.   An interest rate increase would cut into those profits, money that could be used to write off trillions of yen in bad loans from the bubble era.

8.   And cheaper burgers look especially good right now to Japanese trying to stretch their yen in the longest downturn since the war.

9.   And those profits are a crucial tool that will help banks write off trillions of yen in bad loans cluttering their balance sheets.

10.   As the benchmark index drops, those latent profits decrease, putting banks -- already stretched with trillions of yen in bad loans -- further at risk.