While Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner may get the verbal back of the hand today from lawmakers at a hearing on AIG, he had a damn good day on Monday.

Six weeks ago, Geithner's roll out of bank rescue plans was a complete disaster.  But armed with a mulligan, Geithner - in the eyes of the markets - basically drove the first green with his tee shot yesterday.

As opposed to February 10, when the Dow went down 380 points, Monday's rally was to the tune of 497 points - almost a 900 point net turnaround if you compare those two days.

While the markets raised hell the first time around, yesterday they seemed to give a big endorsement to the Obama Administration's plans to move bad assets off the balance sheets of banks and other financial institutions.

"Wall Street Soars 7 Percent on Bank Plan Debut," said the Reuters headline.

Not only did Geithner win in the markets, but he also had three key deputies nominated by President Obama on Monday, filling some well noted vacancies within the Treasury Department.

In other words, Geithner is getting some good publicity, as opposed to what's been his normal state of affairs since he was chosen for the job by Mr. Obama.

That observation reminds me that while we noted the constant fall of the markets, we shouldn't ignore their recent gains.

The NASDAQ is now higher than it was on January 20, when Obama took the oath of office.

As for the Dow Jones average, it is now just 175 points below where it was on January 20 of this year.

Before you write me a nasty email, I'm not saying that the markets are about to go through the roof or anything.  But those numbers do tell a story.

This is evidently the biggest ten day gain for the S&P since 1938. Maybe it lasts, maybe it doesn't. We'll see.

Regardless, Monday was a good day for Tim Geithner. And a good day for President Obama.

Whether they can string a few of those together is a question for another day.