Negotiators were pushing for a deal before Asian markets open Monday.
"I'm convinced that by Sunday we will have an agreement that people can understand on this bill," said Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, a key Democrat in eight days of up-and-down talks designed to stave off an economic disaster.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi added that "progress is being made," although Friday came and went without senior lawmakers from both parties sitting down together. Talks were to resume Saturday.
Neither she nor Frank divulged details at a late-afternoon news conference in the Capitol, though there was word of a large Democratic concession.
Pelosi told fellow Democrats during a closed-door meeting that the idea of letting judges rewrite mortgages to help bankrupt homeowners avoid foreclosure won't be a part of the emergency legislation. That provision would be a deal-breaker for Republicans whose votes are needed to pass the measure, she said, according to lawmakers at the meeting.
Democrats and Bush administration officials also said they were willing to include House Republicans' idea of having the government insure distressed mortgages
- but only as an option, rather than a replacement for the administration's more sweeping approach.
Democratic and Republican staff aides met into the night on Capitol Hill, going line by line through legislative proposals in an attempt to clear the way for lawmakers to bargain over the weekend.
The major party presidential contenders - Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama
- agreed during their debate Friday that Congress must act soon.
Meanwhile, new details emerged of a remarkably tumultuous White House meeting on Thursday. With the session breaking up in disarray, according to two participants, President Bush issued an appeal, saying, "Can't we just all go out and say things are OK?" The group around the table, congressional leaders as well as McCain and Obama, spurned the presidential request for a publicly united front.
