Good Financial News From Europe Open Thread

There's some good news out of the EU this evening that I wanted to pass along. This might make your Sunday a little brighter, and (fingers crossed) could supply some much needed stability to global markets this week.

First, European leaders agreed to some steps to shore up their banking system and credit markets:

The key measures announced were: a pledge to guarantee until the end of 2009 bank debt issues with maturities up to five years; permission for governments to buy bank stakes; and a commitment to recapitalize what the statement called ``systemically'' critical banks in distress. 

This has been positively greeted by the electronic currency markets -- "The euro rose the most in three weeks against the dollar and the yen after European leaders agreed to guarantee bank borrowing and prevent big lenders from going under" -- as well as S&P 500 futures -- "Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures expiring in December added 36.6 points, or 4.1 percent, to 927.6 as of 8:58 a.m. in Tokyo."

Stay tuned.