Global Markets Rally on Fed Action

Global markets rallied this morning, cheering the Fed's interest rate cut yesterday that lowered the Federal Funds rate to one percent. The Fed's cut followed moves by other central banks to cut interest rates. The New York Times opines this morning on the possibility of the Fed cutting down to zero percent, as many economists observe the Fed has fewer tools in its toolkit these days.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 12.8 percent, Japan's Nikkei rose 10 percent and South Korea's Seoul Composite had an all-time gain of 12 percent. The Japanese government announced a new $50 billion spending plan to jumpstart the economy.

In Europe, Deutsche Bank reported that its net income fell 73 percent, but it stayed in the black, which surprised analysts. The European markets are happy too. So far, Germany's DAX index is up more than 4 percent, the DJ Stoxx index is up one percent and London's FTSE is up more than one percent.

Before today's opening bell, the markets will be watching for the gross domestic product data, due out this morning at 8:30 a.m. Check back here and on washingtonpost.com for updates on GDP and other news on the financial crisis.

--Sara Goo