yen

Several benchmark indexes crossed key levels on Monday: Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average rose above 50000 for the first time, getting support from a weaker yen and growing hopes of stimulus under Japan’s new political administration.

Japan’s finance ministry is scheduled to auction about 2.7 trillion yen of two-year sovereign notes Friday—the tenor seen as the most sensitive to interest-rate expectations.

And currency shifts have also been a positive influence on Japan, though here the country’s equities have benefited from yen weakness.

But Katayama, who transitioned from a two-decade career as a finance ministry bureaucrat to a politician in 2005, is seen as more fiscally conservative and has expressed concerns about the yen’s weakness.

—The dollar rose as oil prices rallied and the Japanese yen weakened.