In the currency market, the dollar shot higher against the euro. Late Tuesday, the euro was trading at $1.4097 vs. $1.4477 on Monday. The dollar closed a third quarter during which its recovery “was simply breathtaking,” wrote currency analysts at Brown Brothers Harriman. “In about seven weeks it recouped everything it lost in the previous seven months and more.”

The big bailout is still Topic #1, as speculation is “rife that the Senate will pass the plan … and that House Republican opposition to the plan will succumb to pressure, with the House passing the plan on Thursday,” wrote Matthew Strauss, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets.

Among the day’s hard numbers, Standard & Poor’s released the latest Case-Shiller home price index, which reported that house prices in 20 major U.S. cities fell 0.9% in July, up from June’s 0.5% drop. Prices are now down a record 16.3% year over year, and off 19.5% from the July 2006 peak.

On the positive side, the Conference Board reported that consumer confidence rose for the third straight month in September. The index rose to 59.8 from a revised August reading of 58.5, vs. economists’ expectations that it would remain unchanged.

However, “These results did not capture all of the tumultuous events in the financial sector this month, and until the dust settles a bit more, we will not know the full impact on consumers’ expectations,” said Conference Board economist Lynn Franco.

Source: Dollar on a tear -  Gains on euro weakness, bailout hopes