The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher today, after the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all fell 4% yesterday. The NY Times explained this morning's activity, "Wall Street opened modestly higher Tuesday, a day after a rout in global stocks helped drive indexes down to 1996 levels."
One thing that's helping today: The Federal Reserve announced the launch of the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), which apparently has the "potential to generate up to $1 trillion of lending for businesses and households." A trading analyst told Bloomberg News, "The government is finally starting to get a clue and address the instability in the markets, aid the banks and jumpstart lending. The banking system has been creamed and people have lost confidence, so these measures show the government becoming more sensitive to the bad asset issue." Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will be speaking today.
Also interesting is the Wall Street Journal's graphic on the Obama administration's possible plan for a private-public partnership to deal with troubled assets.
