Credit gets better

There's clearly improvement, which helps explain why the Dow is up more the 300 points (the NYT describes it as a "wave of relief").
Here are two encouraging signs:

--Yields on the three-month Treasury bill Monday were 1.112 percent, up from 0.82 percent late Friday.

--The TED spread, which measures the difference between the 3-month London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and the 3-month U.S. Treasury borrowing rate, stands at 2.96 percent. Last Friday, it reached a record high of 4.65 percent.

Here's Tom Petruno's take at Money & Co.:

The jump in T-bill yields indicates a waning appetite for super-safe securities. If banks and investors aren’t hoarding T-bills they presumably are lending more or putting their money into riskier investments. "There are definitely some positive signs" of a thaw in credit, said Matthew Moore, an interest rate strategist at Banc of America Securities in New York. The stock market likes what it sees in the credit markets, and also is taking heart from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s endorsement of another federal fiscal stimulus plan for the economy.