January 29, 2009

White-hot worries about the country's banks have cooled noticeably as expectations have grown that the Obama administration will create a "bad bank" to clean all the toxic debt off the financial sector's balance sheets.

Speculation about such a plan, raising hope that financial institutions could eventually emerge from the welter of bad loans that have weighed them down, caused share prices of banking companies to surge, pushing the overall stock market up sharply.