Markets Up at Opening

Wall Street opened largely up this morning on news of a fresh federal capital injection into America's struggling big banks and possible additional aid to Citigroup, the sickest of the big banks.

In the first 15 minutes of trading, the Dow is up 44 points, or about half a percent.

The S&P 500 is also up about half a percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq is just below water.

The big banks are still being bogged down by the toxic assets -- such as mortgage-backed securities, for which no market exists -- on their books. The original aim of the $700 billion federal rescue/bailout was to buy those toxic assets, but the money was used to buy direct federal stakes in the banks.

Those purchases may have kept the banks in business, but the toxic assets remained on the books, hobbling lending.

-- Frank Ahrens
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