Wall Street gives Geithner a bailout

By: Eamon Javers
Politico
March 23, 2009

For one day anyway, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was back in Wall Street’s good graces.

At least that was the snap reaction to the new $1 trillion public-private bank bailout plan Geithner unveiled yesterday – a nearly 300 point spike in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The White House always warns about reading too much into the ups and downs of the stock market. But even President Barack Obama’s aides must have been breathing a sigh of relief to see the real-time Dow ticker headed upward after Geithner’s big announcement.

That’s because the last time he announced a bailout plan in February, the Dow went in the opposite direction. The market closed down that day by 380 points amid concerns that the plan lacked specifics, and that Geithner himself seemed unsure and ill at ease.

(More here.)