Author: Wendie Feinberg, Managing Editor

There used to be an attraction at Disneyworld called Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. It was a terrifying joy ride in which you lurched from disaster to disaster... crashing through walls and a fireplace, careening into trucks, and my personal favorite, a head-on collision with an oncoming train. You were taken on a jarring, manic, havoc-wreaking trip... which wound up in Hell... and eventually spit you back out into the soothing reality of the Magic Kingdom's beautifully manicured grounds. If you were watching business and finance news events over the last 2 weeks, this type of trip will sound eerily familiar.

The last 2 weeks have been a wild ride for everyone who involved in the banking system and the economy... which is just about all of us. If you're saving for retirement, own a mutual fund or individual stocks, have money in the bank (any bank) or money in your wallet, you were swept along on Mr. Paulson's Wild Ride. We have lurched from crisis to crisis... Fannie/Freddie/Merrill/Lehman/WAMU/MoneyMarkets/Morgan/Wachovia... and the list goes on.

It's unusual for Nightly Business Report to be making news, rather than our usual role of reporting and analyzing it. But that's the case today, thanks to Jon Friedman at MarketWatch. His column about our anchor Susie Gharib is generating a lot of buzz on the web. We thought you'd like to read his column yourself.. as well as the comments posted at the end of it.

If you are a faithful viewer of the program (and we hope you are) you've probably noticed Paul's Stocks in the News segment has not had his usual lineup of stock charts in the last few weeks. He mentioned on the air that we're having some computer glitches. But.. the problems have gone on far longer than we anticipated, so it's time for an explanation. I thought this blog would be the best place for everyone to see it.

We use two different services to produce on-air stock charts.. a data provider and a software provider. Several weeks ago, our data provider underwent a HUGE change in how it handle its information, and had to change the ticker symbols for more than 27,000 (yes, that's thousand) stocks and indices. When the new symbols were plugged into the charting software, the two systems refused to work properly together. They're still not working properly together, and so we've been working with both vendors virtually non-stop to get things back to normal.

How high can it go? That's the question of the day today about the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is now rapidly closing in on the 13,000 mark. Spurring the gains.. some stronger than expected corporate earnings news.. and a rebound in China's stock market, which suffered big losses yesterday.

Also on the radar today... a move underway on Capitol Hill to outline a so-called "bill of rights" for the nation's air travelers. You've probably heard the horror stories of people stuck in planes on the tarmac for hours while the airlines coped with bad weather. That's what's behind the move to detail exactly what passengers are entitled to and what they can expect from their carriers. Stephanie Dhue reports.

And, Suzanne Pratt, wraps up her series "Everything you Ever Wanted to Know About Earnings" with a look at the controversial practice of guidance. Plus, tonight's Market Monitor guest is Elaine Garzarelli... of Garzarelli Capital.

The day is starting out slowly on Wall Street. The big news for investors will actually come tomorrow, when the Labor Department releases its March Employment Report. But the stock markets are closed tomorrow for the Good Friday holiday, so there won't be any reaction to the number... at least reaction from equities investors. We'll preview what the employment picture is expected to look like, with a report tonight from Scott Gurvey.

By the way, our program Friday night is a holiday special -- Sarbanes Oxley: 5 Years Later. We're going to be looking at how that legislation changed how American companies do business... and how the legislation itself could now be in for some changes. We'll also report that employment number tomorrow night.

Another item on our radar screen today: Fish! We have a special report looking at aquatic agriculture -- how fish are being farmed around the world for use as a sustained food supply.

And our Market Monitor guest tonight is Robert Stovall of Wood Asset Managment. He'll be talking with Paul about trends in the market and what he sees down the road.

The spotlight is on oil today... with a couple of cross currents buffeting markets worldwide. First, Iran agreed to release those 15 British sailors it had been holding hostage, in what Iran called a "favor" to Britain. That sent oil prices skidding more than $1.00 a barrel lower on the New York Mercantile Exchange on hopes of a more normal geopolitical situation in the MidEast.

But.. new government figures showed a huge drop in gasoline supplies in the U.S and that sent NYMEX oil prices heading up. Scott Gurvey sorts all this out for us tonight.

Today is the first day of trading for the combined NYSE Euronext -- the beginning of NYSE's efforts to put together a global exchange. Susie Gharib sits down the with NYSE Chairman John Thain, just back from Paris, to get the latest.

And, we've been covering the meltdown in the subprime mortgage market over the last few months. Tonight, an interesting look at how homeowners may have a sub-prime mortgage... and not even know it!

Falling oil prices are helping to pave the way for a higher start to trading on Wall Street. Also adding to investor optimism: news the number of pending home sales for February rose slightly from the month before. So, at mid-morning, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up more than 100 points.

Another big deal of a day on Wall Street. or rather, a day of big deals. The biggest carries a $29 billion price tag-- Private equity group KKR is buying First Data... a company that processes credit card transactions. The move shows again just how much cash private equity is sitting on these days... Scott Gurvey reports on this story for us tonight... Xerox is also in a buying mood... snapping up Global Imaging Systems for $1.5 billion...

The Federal Reserve once again takes center stage on Wall Street today. The Fed's Open Market Committee begins a 2 day meeting on interest rate policy, with a decision expected tomorrow at 2:15 pm EDT. One thing we know the Fed will be looking at is housing, and it has some fresh data to chew on today -- a report that February's housing starts rose by 9%. That's a much stronger gain than expected, but there were weather related factors involved. (Last month was much warmer than usual.)

Tonight, we'll present the second part of our special series "A Tale of 3 Cities." Last night, we looked at the housing market in New York City. Tonight, it's the Washington, D.C. area, which has some unusual factors at play. One of the most unusual is a large, stable employer -- the U.S. Government. Tomorrow night, by the way, we head south for a look at the condo boom and bust in the Miami area.

Also tonight, our weekly series "Of Mutual Interest" takes a look at what investors should do with mutual funds when the stock markets are volatile... as they have been in recent weeks. Our guest is Jason Zweig, Investing columnist for Money Magazine.

Stocks on Wall Street took off at the start of trading today... thanks to a strong day of trading in Asian and European markets and some merger and aquisition news. There is a report out of Europe that Britain's Barclay's Bank and the Netherlands' ABN AMRO are talking about a merger. If that happens, it would be a 160-billion dollar deal and would result in a bank that would be about the same size as the U.S.' JPMorgan Chase.

Airbus' huge, new A380 mega-airplane is set to touch down in the U.S. today... on two coasts. One plane, complete with passengers, is heading to New York's JFK airport from London. A second plane, empty this time, is flying from Sydney, Austrlia to Los Angeles. The A380 has been plagued with production problems in recent months, soo today's airshows are seen as major milestones for Airbus.

Meanwhile, Airbus' competitor Boeing could be in for even more competition. It looks like China is ramping up to start manufacturing airplanes. We'll look at how this move could change the global aviation industry.