4:10PM EST: Wall Street had a stunning late-session turnaround Thursday, shooting higher and hurtling the Dow Jones industrials up more than 400 points after a report that the federal government may create an entity that will take over banks’ bad debt.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is working on setting up a government facility to take on bad debts from financial institutions to prevent a worsening of the global credit crisis, Wall Street sources have told CNBC.

The facility would be similar to the Resolution Trust Corporation, which was set up in the late 1980s to take on all the failed thrift assets during the savings and loan crisis, these sources said.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank (ECB), the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, and the Swiss National Bank announced coordinated measures designed to address the continued elevated pressures in U.S. dollar short-term funding markets. These measures, together with other actions taken in the last few days by individual central banks, are designed to improve the liquidity conditions in global financial markets. The central banks continue to work together closely and will take appropriate steps to address the ongoing pressures.

Federal Reserve Actions
The Federal Open Market Committee has authorized a $180 billion expansion of its temporary reciprocal currency arrangements (swap lines). This increased capacity will be available to provide dollar funding for both term and overnight liquidity operations by the other central banks. 

The FOMC has authorized increases in the existing swap lines with the ECB and the Swiss National Bank. These larger facilities will now support the provision of U.S. dollar liquidity in amounts of up to $110 billion by the ECB, an increase of $55 billion, and up to $27 billion by the Swiss National Bank, an increase of $15 billion. 

In addition, new swap facilities have been authorized with the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Canada. These facilities will support the provision of U.S. dollar liquidity in amounts of up to $60 billion by the Bank of Japan, $40 billion by the Bank of England, and $10 billion by the Bank of Canada. 

All of these reciprocal currency arrangements have been authorized through January 30, 2009.

(Yehuda Drudgestein – YWN Desk)