PAUL KANGAS, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT ANCHOR: The Treasury Secretary says the nation needs a new game plan when it comes to financial regulation. He wants greater protection for investors and a single referee for non-bank financial firms. SUSIE GHARIB, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT ANCHOR: With the Treasury and the Fed taking dramatic steps to right the economy, some analysts predict that recovery and growth will drive the dollar higher. Coming up, the outlook for the greenback.

KANGAS: Best Buy makes the best of a competitor`s bad situation. The electronics giant posts solid fourth quarter profits and says it expects to charge ahead next year.

GHARIB: Then, while some companies are folding under the weight of the recession, others are expanding. Tonight we profile a firm that`s moving forward in baby steps.

KANGAS: I`m Paul Kangas.

GHARIB: And I`m Susie Gharib. This is NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT for Thursday, March 26.

Good evening, everyone. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner today proposed a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. financial system. Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, Geithner told lawmakers the nation needs new rules for the financial industry. They include: Federal regulation of hedge funds, private equity and credit default swaps; a single regulator with authority over non-bank financial firms such as AIG; greater Federal authority to take over and wind down failed firms. And as Darren Gersh reports, the Obama administration would also like new protections for money market investors.

DARREN GERSH, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: It was not the most exciting thing in Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner`s testimony, but it is the one that could affect the most investors.

TIMOTHY GEITHNER, TREASURY SECRETARY: The SEC should develop strong requirements for money market funds to reduce the risk of rapid withdrawals of funds that could pose greater risks to market functioning.

GERSH: Long considered one of the safest and most boring investments, money market funds had their moment in the headlines after Lehman Brothers failed, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke explained on Tuesday.

BEN BERNANKE, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: Lehman`s default on its commercial paper caused a prominent money market mutual fund to break the buck and suspend withdrawals, which in turn ignited a general run on prime money market mutual funds, with resulting severe stresses in the commercial paper market.

GERSH: The SEC wants to keep that from happening again. It plans to require funds to hold investments with higher credit quality and maintain large positions in securities that are easy to liquidate. The industry supports those reforms and has also called for rules requiring funds to know whether they are overly exposed to the investment decisions of a few big clients. And in the worst case scenario, the Investment Company Institute`s Brian Reid says funds should have greater powers to freeze withdrawals and if necessary, liquidate in an orderly manner.

BRIAN REID, CHIEF ECONOMIST, INVESTMENT COMPANY INSTITUTE: And so the goal would be here to help a fund manager, give them more tools along with the approval of the fund`s board to be able to contain a particular event in a fund to keep it from spreading to other funds.

GERSH: The Obama administration is pushing hard to create a single regulator that can head off systemic risks posed by money market funds and other large financial instruments. SEC Chairman Mary Shapiro is concerned that could undermine protections for individual investors.

MARY SHAPIRO, CHAIRMAN, SEC: My fear is that a systemic risk regulator and systemic risk concerns will always trump investor protection and given the structure of our markets and the broad participation of the public in our markets, that would be a terrible result.

GERSH: In return for greater safety, money market fund investors might have to settle for slightly lower returns once markets return to normal. But the hit will be small, perhaps as little as 0.1 of 1 percentage point. Darren Gersh, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Washington.

KANGAS: It looks like confidence is growing on Wall Street that the worst is behind us. The tech stocks led the way higher today with the NASDAQ up 41 points by mid-session and the Dow gaining 105 points. Solid earnings from Best Buy and Conagra and a well received seven-year Treasury note auction added to the rally `s momentum so the market went on to close at the day`s best levels. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 174 3/4 points exactly at 7924.56. That put it up over 20 percent since its March 9th low. Technically that`s a bull market indicator. The NASDAQ added 58.05 to 1587 even today and today`s rally put the NASDAQ Composite of territory (ph) on the year, something many thought we`d never hear. Standard & Poor`s 500 rose 18.98 points ending at 832.86. In the bond market, the 10-year note rose 15/32 to par and 2/32, putting the yield at 2.74 percent.

GHARIB: President Obama warned today that more jobs will be lost in the recession and that the economy is in for a quote difficult time. Next week the Labor Department is expected to report American businesses cut 640,000 jobs in March, pushing the unemployment rate to 8.4 percent. Joining me now to talk more about the job market, the CEO of careerbuilder, Matt Ferguson. Mr. Ferguson, welcome to NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT.

MATT FERGUSON, CEO, CAREERBUILDER.COM: Great, thanks for having me here tonight.

GHARIB: So President Obama sees more job losses. Some of the economists that we`re talking to expect the unemployment rate to get to 10 percent later this year. Is that your expectation or are you seeing these job losses stabilizing?

FERGUSON: We`re not seeing stabilization yet. And I do think in fact, the unemployment rate may get above 10 percent, maybe even up to 11 percent which would make it the highest since the World War II.

GHARIB: Where are you, if there are any job postings, where are you seeing them, in what kinds of industries, what kind of businesses?

FERGUSON: Well, you`re seeing right now, obviously we`re losing as you just noted over 600,000 jobs a month and have been now for three straight months. You`re seeing the job creation in areas like health care, education. You would expect, even with an aging population in the United States, health care still growing and adding jobs. Education, so many people are going back to school. You need to gain skills that education still growing and then government. Those are the three areas that you see today that are adding jobs in the United States.

GHARIB: If someone is willing to relocate, are there certain parts of the country where maybe you have a better chance, or more opportunity for finding a job?.

FERGUSON: It a good question. I think we`re seeing from our surveys more and more people are willing to relocate today and are more flexible about where they live. The area that I would say are the strongest today would be the southeast and the southwest. The exception of that would probably be California, except for maybe the San Diego area is still pretty strong. But I`m seeing the southeast and the southwest, jobs per thousand people being the two strongest regions.

GHARIB: Now Mr. Ferguson, are you seeing that the stimulus package that the government put in place and all these other programs that the government has initiated to boost the economy, are they kicking in to create jobs. Are people getting hired?

FERGUSON: We`re not seeing it yet. I think our expectation would be that as the shovel-ready projects start rolling out April, May, that you will see the construction numbers get better. And hopefully you could see those even turn positive. The construction has just been an area of the economy where we have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs over the last couple years. And so I think we see that as being the most immediate impact. And then later term, probably in the next year, maybe some of the green energy jobs that have been talked about, I think you might see an impact probably in 2010 for those.