The plan to rescue banks from billions of dollars in bad debt has relieved investors who worried that bad bets on mortgages would hobble more financial companies and cause even more damage to the banking system and the overall economy.
The Dow Jones industrials are up about 370 points at the 11,389 level, giving the blue chips a two-day gain of about 780. Yet the Dow is ending a volatile week largely unchanged follow massive losses earlier Monday and Wednesday. Those losses came in response to the failure of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the government bailout of American International Group Inc.
