Frozen Credit Markets: Pinking Up

Maybe we don't need to spend that remaining $350 billion in TARP money after all (via Ed Yardeni):

The good news is that the Fed’s efforts to avoid a depression, caused by the credit crunch resulting from the demise of Lehman and Paulson’s TARP debacle, seem to be working finally:
(1) Credit spreads are narrowing in the mortgage, corporate, and tax-exempt markets.
(2) Mortgage rates are down below 5%.
(3) US investment-grade spreads have tightened since mid-December when they were quoted at a record peak of 578bp over US Treasuries. They were recently about 513bp.
(4) According to Bloomberg's estimates, corporations sold $41bn in fresh debt securities last week, the biggest weekly total in nearly eight months.
(5) US commercial paper outstanding rose $83.1bn, during the week ended January 7, to a seasonally adjusted $1.76 trillion. That’s the highest since the week ended September 10, five days before the Lehman bankruptcy filing. The Fed absorbed only $96 million of the debt, the least since it began buying the paper on October 27.
(6) MZM plus savings deposits rose during the week of December 29 to a record $13.2tn. It is now equal to 1.5 times the market capitalization of the Wilshire 5000, little changed from November’s 1.6 reading, which was the highest such comparison on record. The S&P 500 dividend yield is 2.9%, while the yield on MZM is close to zero. (MZM is equal to M2 less savings deposits plus money market funds held by institutions.)