UPDATE, 9:45 a.m. EASTERN: the Dow Jones industrial average jumped more than 340 points, or about 3 percent within two minutes of opening. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose more than 2.5 percent and the Nasdaq was up 2.1 percent. The Nikkei 225 stock average closed Tokyo trading 3.4 percent higher, and the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong rose 4.3 percent.
World stock markets soared today on the weekend news by the Bush Administration that the federal government is bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
By afternoon in Europe, the Associated Press reported that Germany's DAX jumped 3.45 percent to 6,338.89 and France's CAC 40 climbed 4.83 percent to 4,399.55. Trading on the London Stock Exchange, Europe's oldest independent exchange, was halted in the morning because of a computer fault but Britain's FTSE 100 had risen 3.81 percent to 5,440.20 shortly after 9:00 a.m. local time (0800 GMT), and remained at that level midmorning.
"It was a very broad rally," Lawrence Peterman, investment director at Eden Financial in London, told the Associated Press. "All the banks are up strongly on the back of the U.S. news at the weekend."
he New York Stock Exchange announced that the common and related preferred stock of Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) will be halted news dissemination during the pre-market and available to all markets for trading at 9:30 a.m. (EST) this morning. After consultation with the FHFA, Treasury and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Exchange officials said this decision will allow investors to digest the news that has been disseminated over the weekend, to interpret the news and the analysis that will be generated on Monday morning and to evaluate the resulting aggregate supply and demand. All markets will be free to trade both FNM and FRE as of 9:30 a.m. (EST) today.
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