It is fair to note, as the Japanese themselves do, that Japan is one of the more group-oriented societies in the world. An old Japanese proverb warns, The nail that sticks up will be hammered down. How odd, then, that the Japanese yen — 13.6 percent of the benchmark dollar index (DXY) — is a currency with its own rhythm. It truly marches to the beat of a different drummer. To an extent casual observers have difficulty believing, most currencies are more or less disconnected from their countrys external trade balance (see "What Drives the Dollar Index?", Currency Trader, January 2006). Instead, they tend to rise and fall as a function of interest-rate differentials, yield-curve shapes, and returns on assets denominated in that currency.