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Small-cap stocks extended the rally into midday trading, powered by ideas recent government plans to pour billions of dollars into banking institutions, while mopping up toxic debt with taxpayer coffers would right the ship in equities and avert an even deeper global economic downturn. Other Market Watch highlights today include:

• Financial stocks are among the best performers.
• The poorest performers were real estate investment trusts, homebuilders and regional banks.
• Crude oil prices are up nearly $4 a barrel, gaining a lift from the rally in equity markets around the world.
• Year to date the Russell index is off 31.8%, seven percentage points less than the S&P 500's 38.8% decline.
• Much of the hope for a bottom is tied to a thaw in lending practices and the credit market is closed today for the Columbus Day holiday.

Small Cap Gainers:

• Targa Resources Partners (Nasdaq:NGLS) shares spiked 30% after the natural gas company said it will buy back $50 million in shares.
• Shares of GTx (Nasdaq:GTXI) soar 30% after the biopharma firm says phase II clinical trial for cancer induced muscle loss succeeded.
• Tesoro (NYSE:TSO) issues third-quarter earnings guidance above the Street. Shares surge 22%.
• A-Power Energy (Nasdaq:APWR) jumps 24% on reaffirmed third-quarter . . .

Small-cap stocks are expected to open lower, pulled down by a stunning jump in weekly unemployment claims, which jolted investors a day ahead of the monthly employment release. The Russell 2000 (NYSE:IWM) was up about 0.3% before the claims number was released, but now is expected to open down 0.5%, which suggests an open near 715.00.

The weekly claims figure shot to 448,000, which was way above the forecast of 395,000. In fact, it was the largest weekly claims figure in more than five years. The immediate response to the number was a rise in Treasury products, a slide in the U.S. dollar and a whopping 11-handle decline in S&P 500 futures.

At the same time that the weekly claims figure came out, the GDP report also was released. The headline number for GDP came in at 1.9%, which was below the forecast of 2.2%. While GDP also was a disappointment, the fury behind the slide in stocks and the dollar was clearly fueled by the weekly claims shocker.

Crude oil prices stalled overnight, and were down about $0.60 a barrel near $126 heading toward the U.S. open. Energy prices shot $4 dollars a barrel higher Wednesday afternoon on a surprising drop in gasoline stocks seen on the weekly storage data, but that move appears to have lost momentum early today.

There is a potpourri of big-name stocks in the news this morning, with some 40 of the S&P 500 slated to release earnings today. In the financial arena Prudential Financial Inc. (NYSE:PRU) rallied some 5% overnight as losses from subprime . . .

Small and medium-sized businesses are increasingly turning to on-demand software downloaded from the Internet as an effective way to reduce IT spending; Salary.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: SLRY) and Taleo Corporation (Nasdaq: TLEO) are two leading providers that are reaping the benefits of the growing software need.

Gartner, a research firm, expects sales of on-demand software to grow to $11.5 billion by 2011 from $5.1 billion this year. That growth outlook is three to four times higher than projections for conventional business software. The advantages of on-demand software are that it is relatively inexpensive to implement and easily integrated with packaged software already in place. On-demand software is widely deployed in payroll, merchant services, human resources and customer relationship management applications.

Salary.com provides on-demand compensation software that helps small businesses manage payroll and reduce employee turnover while avoiding significant investments in hardware and IT staffing.

Salary.com software is integrated with a proprietary compensation database that lists market pricing for over 3,000 positions across numerous industries.