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Ford Motor is suffering from guilt by association. The automaker has $15 billion or so in the bank and billions more in credit lines, is not looking for a year-end bailout and still gets splashed with mud. Every day I hear the TV news people, the stars like CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, lump General Motors, Ford and Chrysler together as facing bankruptcy. In Ford's case, this is just not true.

Alan Mulally, the chief executive Ford imported from Boeing (nyse: BA - news - people ), has moved smartly since he gave up his wings. He mortgaged assets (for $24 billion) and signed up credit lines two years ago before all the current turbulence.

He also sold Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, some of Ford's Mazda (other-otc: MZDAF.PK - news - people ) stake and has put Volvo on the block. You can disagree or agree, maybe some of these operations could still have turned into winning assets, but Mulally decided Ford did not need the problems right now.

Unlike GM, Ford has no surplus car lines, which means it avoids both heavy spending to keep too big a lineup up-to-date and endless lectures from Wall Street know-it-alls who say to get rid of them. Excluding Volvo, which Ford hopes to sell, and Mazda Motor, in which it has only a minority stake, Ford has only two dealership channels in this country: Ford and Lincoln/Mercury.

Both Ford and GM are unlike Chrysler in that they have robust foreign operations. For Ford, Europe and South America earned $2.5 billion pre-tax in the first nine months this year. Those markets are slowing, yes, but they are strong businesses. Europe is providing the small-car knowledge and engineering that Ford needs in the U.S.

Yes, Ford has asked for a government-backed credit line, just in case the economic downturn gets much uglier, and is asking for some of the government cash that Congress already appropriated for updating plants and making fuel-saving vehicles. On the other hand, Ford is not begging for an immediate cash infusion to keep it afloat.

Long run, Ford has the ability to grow. For the past two months the Dearborn, Mich., manufacturer has held its own in share against the prior year, while the others slipped. The company even picked up share in November, to 16.4% of the industry sales versus 15.4% a year before. This is a good sign. If GM downsizes, Ford could end up bigger than GM in just a few years.

Wall Street was scuffling Monday afternoon, as cautious investors shied away from equity markets with the future of the U.S. auto industry in flux and the Federal Reserve's monetary policy committee gathering for a two-day meeting.

Investors are still waiting to hear if the Treasury will use Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to aid Detroit, after a $14.0 billion loan package for the car companies was shot down by the Senate. Judging by trading in the shares of publicly traded U.S. automakers General Motors (nyse: GM - news - people ) and Ford Motor (nyse: F - news - people ), investors don't expect the White House to allow them to fail. GM shares were up 19 cents, or 4.8%, to $4.13 Monday; Ford gained 9 cents, or 3.0%, to $3.13. Chrysler, which would have received $4.0 billion in loans under the rejected plan, is privately held.

The struggles facing the industry are not limited to the domestic automakers either. Japan's Toyota Motor (nyse: TM - news - people ) is said to be halting work on a Mississippi plant designed to build its hybrid Prius, once the current phase of production is completed, according to TradeTheNews.com. American depositary receipts of Toyota, which has already pumped $300.0 million at the Mississippi plant, were up $2.34, or 3.7%, to $65.54.

Aside from the positive automaker stocks, it was a red day on Wall Street. The Dow was down 83 points, or 1.0%, to 8,546; the S&P 500 lost 13 points, or 1.5%, to 866; and the Nasdaq fell 34 points, or 2.2%, to 1,507. Investors also had their eyes on the Fed, with expectations the central bank will take its benchmark interest rate down another half point, to 0.5%.

The move would be mostly symbolic, since the effective fed funds rate has been below the 0.5% threshold since October. Market watchers will be more interested in the statement accompanying the decision, which may hint at other methods of easing monetary policy beyond cutting rates, such as investments in Treasury bonds or expanded purchases of Fannie Mae (nyse: FNM - news - people ) and Freddie Mac (nyse: FRE - news - people ) debt.

Treasury yields inched lower Monday, as investors moved out of stocks and into the perceived safety of government debt. The two-year note returned 0.75%, down from 0.77% Friday, while the 10-year note offered 2.54%, from 2.57%. The iShares Lehman 10-20 Year Treasury Bond Fund (nyse: TLH - news - people ), which tracks a range of long-term bonds, was up 50 cents, or 0.4%, to $118.37.

Earnings will come back into focus this week, with reports from Wall Street survivors Goldman Sachs (nyse: GS - news - people ) and Morgan Stanley (nyse: MS - news - people ) on the agenda. Goldman, which is expected to report the first quarterly loss in its 10-year history as a public company Tuesday, was down $1.40, or 2.1%, to $66.34, in afternoon trading. Morgan Stanley lost 27 cents, or 2.0%, to $13.58, ahead of its report Wednesday.

Oil prices reversed course from early gains, as traders weigh the impact of an expected production cut from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The cartel will gather in Algeria Wednesday, and is expected to slash output by at least 2.0 million barrels. Crude, up more than $3.00 earlier in the day, fell $1.33, to $44.95 a barrel.

This is a transcript of the Market Update: Close video report.

WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill on Wednesday to lend up to $14 billion to the three struggling U.S. automakers, General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC.

Introduced by Democrats, the bill is nearly identical to one pending in the Senate, where Republican opposition was making its chances for passage look uncertain.

The bailout proposal would extend taxpayer-funded loans or lines of credit to the Detroit Three and create a federal government post of 'car czar' to oversee the industry.

(Reporting by Kevin Drawbaugh; Editing by Tim Dobbyn) Keywords: AUTOS/BAILOUT VOTE

General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler's desperate pleas for government aid were heard. Over the weekend, legislation to provide the big three with short-term loans to get them through the new year is being drafted, following an agreement between Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and President George Bush on how to fund the rescue.

Pelosi on Friday agreed to go the White House route and use loans from the Department of Energy originally intended to insure the companies would develop green cars in the future, rather than tap Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program funds.

Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody's Economy.com told the Senate that an automaker's bankruptcy would be "cataclysmic." With unemployment at 6.7%, gross domestic product in a tailspin and the banking sector wobbling like a newborn doe, the White House and Congress remain understandably averse to cataclysms.

"We must first prevent additional job loss from occurring. We cannot let the auto industry collapse, which would be catastrophic to our economy," said a Friday statement from Sen. Chris Dodd, the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, signaling his support.

President Bush's remarks Friday were much the same: "It is important that Congress act next week on this plan. And it's important to make sure that taxpayers' money be paid back if any is given to the companies."

It's a much better outcome for the automakers than after their first trip to Capitol Hill, where they flew in on private jets, presented vague plans and were sent home empty-handed. But before Detroit starts cheering, they'd be smart to recall a similar situation a couple months ago. If the $700 billion bailout of the financial system holds any lesson it's this: The car companies are not out of the woods yet.

Paulson's request for $700 billion two and a half months ago is fresh in the minds of those on Capital Hill. Deny him the money, he said, and the economy would implode. Any future economic problems (which by September were inevitable) could be blamed on the inaction of Congress. Despite the threat of apocalypse, they balked for two solid weeks as volleys of constituent disapproval filled the e-mail inboxes of Congress. At one point, the House's Web server crashed from the load. He ultimately got his money, but only after a political brawl unparalleled in recent memory.

America's automakers may be even less loved than America's bankers. All of this has the strong ring of deja vu, and just as rank and file Congressmen balked at bailing out Wall Street, embarrassing party leaders and forcing a dramatic showdown on the Hill, the deal for Detroit is far from done. The challenge is not writing the legislation this weekend. It's getting it passed next week. Are Pelosi and the Democrats up to the challenge? Detroit sure hopes so.