Japanese authorities are relying heavily on psychological tactics to fight yen bears, which means keeping markets guessing about their foreign exchange intervention rather than overt attempts to arrest the currency's decline to multidecade lows.
The battered yen has whipsawed in recent weeks, which analysts and traders attribute to government efforts to prop up the currency against a relentlessly strong dollar, amid worries about the negative economic impact of sharp yen declines.
The yen was trading in the ¥149 level to the dollar on Tuesday in Tokyo.