Russell dips into the red; NCC, AEG and DGLY lead gainers

After initially spiking out of the gate on the government’s plan to unfreeze credit markets by directly injecting capital in banks and guaranteeing loans between banks, the Russell 2000 has steadily descended into the red midday, as traders locked in profits from Monday’s goliath rally. Small-cap gainers today included National City Corp. (NYSE:NCC), Aegon China Insurance (NYSE:AEG) and ChinaTransInfo Technology (Nasdaq:DGLY). Other Market Watch highlights today included:

• Treasury markets were falling hard as the safe-haven push dulled amid strong gains in equities.
• The weakest sectors in today's trading are iron & steel and real estate operations/services. Insurance is one of the day's strongest.
• California-based communications equipment maker JDS Uniphase is the day's most active small cap. Shares are down 12.4% to $6.36.
• The dollar is mixed against the euro and the yen midday and gold is off $2 per troy ounce to $839.
• BMO Capital’s Andy Busch told SmallCapInvestor.com that investors shouldn’t “get too excited by the upmove” today. “The Z factor,” or the unknown impact on companies’ sales or earnings, “will cap this rally as will the terrible . . .

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