Bank of Japan Report Buoys Stocks

The dollar weakened and Japanese stocks rose Monday as a closely watched Bank of Japan report showed that business managers are less pessimistic than expected about the prospects for the nation’s economy. The central bank’s quarterly tankan survey of business sentiment for major manufacturers fell to minus 38, better than many economists had forecast. Investors also were more optimistic that the government would hammer out a “bridge bank” to absorb banks’ bad loans. Japan plans to create a bridge bank modeled after the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to enable the government to close crippled institutions and dispose of 77 trillion yen in bad loans.