Wall Street has big day, Dow closes above 12,000

>>> good evening. even in this bad economy with so many folks out of work, if you have any money at all connected with the stock market there is a good chance you made money today. the market was up big. the dow was up almost 500 points. nasdaq and s&p also up today and coming off some pretty good shopping numbers over the past few days, some folks are wondering what this means and if there is anything larger at work here. cnbc's sue hererra starts us off tonight from cnbc global headquarters. what is at work here?

>> you're right, brian. we have had better economic news lately. what a sent wall street soaring was that central banks from around the world threw an economic lifeline, if you will, to europe's troubled banks. wall street has been or very worried that all the debt problems that have been unfolding, if you will, over the past year or so in europe would spread here to the u.s. what the central banks did was they made it extraordinarily cheap for those banks who need to get extra cash. they can now get it and borrow it from banks around the world for a very minimal sum. it basically buys the banks time to get their economic house in order.

>> so is this, by any chance, larger good news for the folks watching tonight whose investments or perhaps retirement accounts did, indeed, have a good day?

>> i think it is. it's a step toward resolving what's a huge crisis. that's led to the volatility on wall street . one day you look at your portfolio and it's up big like today. look another day and it's down big. if this helps smooth out the volatility we have seen on wall street lately, that's a big step in the right direction really for the american investor and the american consumer.

>> sue, thanks for helping us out with this.

>>> now we turn to health news and a staple of so many american families in the news. there is a