With a crisis on its hands, the Fed convinced five other central banks around the world to
invest a total of $180 billion in global financial markets.
Meanwhile, AIG was
tossed out of the Dow Jones industrial average and replaced with food giant Kraft.
The stock market soared towards the close of the session, with financial stocks rebounding. The Dow added more than 400 points on rumors that an even more extensive federal bailout of the banking industry was in the making. Investors cheered early these reports that the Treasury would create an independent federal agency to take bad loans off bank of balance sheets.
Late Thursday night, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson met with Congressional leaders to hammer out the details of
a large-scale bailout.
NEXT: Friday, Sept. 19 - The confidence boost