Stocks, dollar surge into 2009

Investors seemed to set aside the bad news, pushing the Dow Jones industrial average up a whopping 258 points, or 2.94 percent. The FTSE Eurofirst jumped 2.98 percent, with traders evidently hoping that with 2008 so bad, 2009 could only be better. Yet the economic backdrop was hardly comforting. Factories in China, India and Eastern Europe joined the United States and other developed countries in slashing output and jobs in December, another sign recession is spreading to emerging markets. U.S. manufacturers had their worst December since 1980, and new orders fell to a record low, according to the Institute for Supply Management. The euro was down 1 percent against the dollar at USD 1.3854. Given weakness in the economy, analysts expect any stimulus package that emerges from President-elect Barack Obama's administration to be quite large perhaps as big as USD1 trillion.