The U.S. Treasury Department’s is pressing the go button on its Public-Private Investment Program and re-expanding the $1 trillion Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF).

Risk Assets soar! …  What’s behind this stock rally? … Charts and fundamentals…  Aussie Consumer Confidence Drops…  And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Agricultural Bank of China Raises $7.3 Billion; Banks Applying to Repay TARP; Fiat CEO Confident About Opel Bid; World Bank Prez Sees Year-End Recovery; Derivatives Shrink to $592 Trillion; GE Reaches Debt Funding Goals for 2009; UAW & GM Still at Odds on Labor Agreement; Home Depot Beats Street

Buy-out fund manager Mark Patterson won’t be high up on Tim Geithner’s Christmas card list this year. The chairman of MatlinPatterson Advisers says Geithner’s effort to stabilize the banking system through the TARP is a hopelessly ill-conceived policy that enriches speculators at public expense.

Intel Dealt $1.45 Billion Fine; WSJ: Gov’t Wants Financial Sector Pay Overhaul; Verizon Divests Access Lines for Stock; AIG Says 5 Years to Pay Back Gov’t; Foreclosures Jump to Record High; Geithner: Small Banks to Get TARP Funds; Auto Dealers Get The Axe; Ford Raises $1.4 Billion From Stock Sale

In an odd bit of capitalist irony, the U.S. banking crisis could end up as the catalyst that finally jump-starts the long-moribund market for initial public stock offerings (IPOs).  In fact, it already appears to be happening.

Home Prices Record Plunge; U.S. Trade Gap Grows; Social Security Funds Running Out Early; Citigroup Lends Most TARP Money; Big Shipper Maersk Posts Loss; EU To Do Bank Stress Tests

One business day removed from the government’s bank stress tests, four of the largest U.S. banks – BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT), Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF), U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB) and KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) – announced plans to raise capital through stock offerings.

The results of the government’s bank stress tests were released yesterday (Thursday), and the U.S. Federal Reserve has directed 10 banks to raise an aggregate $70 billion-plus in capital.

Guess which investment bank has done the best under the patronage of Team Obama? Hint: It’s the same bank whose former CEO wrote the rules of the $700 billion TARP. The same bank that has had the good fortune of seeing two of its former employees fill the role of the past and current head of the New York Fed.