When President Obama takes to the airwaves Monday evening to rally support for his $800 billion-plus stimulus plan, he'll find himself in the tricky position of simultaneously needing to inspire confidence in the long-term strength of the economy while also dramatizing the current crisis as so dire that immediate action by Congress is necessary.

It's part of a White House publicity blitz to sell his strategy to the public, and it'll be in press conference format so the president can defend criticism of his plan rather than just laying out the details.

Earlier Monday, the president made a targeted pitch at a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Ind., where unemployment reached 15.3% in December. Tuesday, Obama takes the same message on the road to Florida. Meanwhile, Congress is struggling to come up with a bill to send to the president's desk.

Lately, he's done little to balance these competing positions. In Indiana Monday, Obama warned that delay would mean that "millions of jobs will be lost, and national unemployment rates will approach double digits," also adding that no matter what is done "recovery will likely be measured in years, not weeks or months."

It wasn't exactly a fireside chat. Don't expect one tonight, either. Here's what you're likely to see in Monday's press conference:

The selling points

Expect Obama's remarks Monday to be directed at individuals, just as they were during his Indiana speech. He'll point out that the plan will provide extended unemployment benefits, tax credits of up to $1,000 for families, partially refundable student tax credits and that more than 90% of the jobs created will be in the private sector.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that lawsuits may proceed against tobacco companies for allegedly deceptive marketing of "light" cigarettes.

In a 5-4 split won by the court's liberals, the court said that smokers may use state consumer protection laws to sue cigarette makers for the way they promote "light" and "low tar" brands.'

The decision was at odds with recent anti-consumer rulings that limited state regulation of business in favor of federal power.

The tobacco companies argued that the lawsuits are barred by the federal cigarette labeling law, which forbids states from regulating any aspect of cigarette advertising that involves smoking and health.

Justice John Paul Stevens, however, said in his majority opinion that the labeling law does not shield the companies from state laws against deceptive practices.

People suing the cigarette makers still must prove that the use of 'light' and 'lowered tar' actually violate the state anti-fraud laws, but those lawsuits may go forward, Stevens said.

He was joined by the other liberal justices, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter, as well as Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose vote often decides cases where there is an ideological division.

Oil prices rose sharply toward $50 a barrel Monday as investors anticipated OPEC will announce a large production cut at its meeting this week.

Light, sweet crude for January delivery was up $3.24 to $49.52 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by mid-afternoon in Europe. The contract briefly reached $50.05 before falling back. On Friday, it fell $1.70 to settle at $46.28.

In London, January Brent crude gained $3.40 to $49.81 on the ICE Futures exchange.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which accounts for 40 percent of global supply, has signaled it plans to announce a substantial reduction of output quotas at its meeting Wednesday in Algeria.

"The extent of such cuts is still unclear and this uncertainty has been a source of continuing volatility in futures markets," said a report by analysts at KBC Market Services in Great Britain.

Kuwaiti oil minister Mohammed al-Eleim said Monday that OPEC was "undoubtedly inclined" to cut production. But he added that any decision would balance the need for a cut with its impact on the ailing world economy and producer nations' need for revenue to fund development projects.

Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari was quoted Sunday on his ministry's Web site saying that Iran would push for a production cut of 1.5 to 2 million barrels per day.

Members of Congress wanted Detroit's Big Three automakers to redo their homework before they resumed begging for a government bailout today. So how'd they do?

It doesn't matter. If a Senate Banking Committee on the matter Thursday was any indication, the failure of America's automakers poses such a danger to the economy that lawmakers seem less focused at this point on whether they'll give the automakers a bailout, and more so on how they'll do it.

"We're not going to leave town without trying," committee chairman Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said of their efforts to provide funding for General Motors (nyse: GM - news - people ), Ford Motor (nyse: F - news - people ) and Chrysler.

That augurs well for GM's Rick Wagoner, Ford's Alan Mulally and Chrysler's Robert Nardelli as they prepare for day two of hearings before the House Financial Services Committee Friday. But by no means should the Big Three, their suppliers, dealers or the United Auto Workers union breathe a sigh of relief. If there's any group that can kick around ideas and take no action on them, it's Congress.

Still, for advocates of a bailout, the horizon is less cloudy than it was at the beginning of the week. For one thing, not a single witness at Thursday's hearing opposed the idea of a government bailout, though Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com, who was also on the panel, says he believes the companies will need $75 billion to $125 billion to avoid bankruptcy--not the $34 billion they have requested.

In addition, the automakers are all open to various propositions put forth by the senators Thursday. The most popular of these is the idea of a government oversight board or trustee to manage the bailout, akin to the group that handled the government bailout of Chrysler Corp. in 1979 and 1980.

They're also agreeable to an idea put forth by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., to subject the auto companies to monthly benchmarking so the government can ensure the money is being used as it sees fit. The Big Three are fine with having the Fed regulate their financing arms and another body (probably the oversight board) regulate the manufacturing companies. And they're on board with the idea of giving taxpayers the most senior position when it comes to repayment of the loans, though Ford has a slight complication with this because the company has already mortgaged all of its assets. Nonetheless, Mulally says "there must be a way" to work around this dilemma.

Online spending at U.S. retailers on Monday jumped 15 percent over with the comparable day a year ago to $846 million, comScore said Thursday, as consumers sought out bargains in a tough economy.

The Monday after Thanksgiving was nicknamed "Cyber Monday" by the National Retail Federation to describe the surge in online spending when customers return to work after Thanksgiving and shop from their desks.

Online shopping is popular among consumers who want to compare prices for the best deal, so usage can increase in a tough economy when shoppers are paying more attention to costs.

ComScore (nasdaq: SCOR - news - people ) said a 22 percent rise in the number of buyers drove the increase, even though the average amount shoppers spent declined 5 percent. ComScore attributed the drop in dollars per buyer to each buyer completing fewer transactions.

ComScore representative Gian Fulgoni said nearly two million more consumers bought items online this year because of "extremely attractive" prices offered by retailers.

"But because of their reduced spending power, it's also evident that those who did buy were unable or unwilling to spend as much per person as we saw last year," Fulgoni said in a statement.

The most visited retail site was eBay Inc. (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ), which recorded nearly 13 million visitors, up 45 percent from last year, followed by Amazon.com Inc. (nasdaq: AMZN - news - people ) with 9.2 million visitors.

Cyber Monday may not be the digital shopping extravaganza it was once purported to be. But even if consumers are spreading out their online sales, cybersecurity firm Webroot software believes the Monday after Thanksgiving will still be a special day: The company issued a warning last week that Dec. 1 is still the most likely 24 hours of the year to have your banking information stolen by cyber fraudsters.

That's been a common refrain from security researchers in years' past. And Webroot's recommendations--including updating security software and buying from trusted sites--makes sense. But just how worried should online shoppers be? (Back to main story: "Holiday E-Deals Come Early.")

Much of the hype around Cyber Monday's cyber threats is overblown, says Patrik Runald, a security researcher with software company F-Secure. To steal your banking codes while you use a site like Amazon.com (nasdaq: AMZN - news - people ) or eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ), hackers would need to place hidden "keylogger" software on your computer. And F-Secure, he says, has never tracked a spike in that kind of malicious software either on Cyber Monday or even in the weeks leading up to it. This implies that hackers aren't using the opportunity to infect PCs for future fraud, either. "Cyber Monday is just another day for us," he says.

There are still reasons to shop with care. Runald warns of Cyber Monday-themed "phishing" e-mails that impersonate messages from legitimate sites and send consumers to lookalike pages designed to steal passwords, he says. Security researchers have also warned that search engines could be populated with fake pages that impersonate retailers.

But navigating directly to a known site will be as safe on Monday as it would be on any other day. In fact, while F-Secure tracks about 30,000 new samples of malicious software daily, Runald says he rarely sees noticeable bursts of new identity theft software.

"We don't really have doomsdays anymore,” he says. "We get so many new samples all the time that it's hard to see a spike on any particular day.” (Back to main story: "Holiday E-Deals Come Early.")

Wall Street showed its relief Monday over the government's plan to bail out Citigroup Inc. - a move it hopes will help address some of the uncertainty hounding the financial sector. Stocks jumped more than 3 percent, extending Friday's big rally.

While the markets anticipated last week that some sort of rescue could occur, investors appeared emboldened by the U.S. government's decision late Sunday to invest $20 billion in Citigroup and guarantee $306 billion in risky assets. The move by the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is only the latest effort this year to support a banking system troubled by bad debt and flagging confidence.

Besides implementing its $700 billion bailout plan for the overall financial industry, the government has bailed out insurance giant American International Group Inc. and taken over lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The market is also a little more optimistic because President-elect Obama is set to introduce his economic team on Monday and has called for another economic stimulus. His plan targets saving or creating 2.5 million jobs during the next two years. Any plan is expected to exceed the $175 billion Obama proposed during the campaign.

The moves by the government to again step in and help a troubled bank as well as perhaps the broader economy helped buoy investor sentiment. Still, investors remain cautious because the nation faces a difficult economy and the stock market likely will continue to see volatility.

In midmorning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 317.00, or 3.94 percent, to 8,363.42.

Broader stock indicators also jumped. The Standard & Poor's 500 index advanced 35.29, or 4.41 percent, to 835.32, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 60.83, or 4.39 percent, to 1,445.18.

The rise in stocks follows a rally Friday that saw the Dow industrials jump 494 points, or 6.5 percent. The other major indexes also rose sharply. Still, stocks ended the week with a loss after heavy selling Wednesday and Thursday.

Bond prices were mixed Monday as investors examined the government's bailout plan for Citigroup. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 3.29 percent from 3.20 percent late Friday.

The Treasury bill market showed continuing high demand, a sign of investors' caution. The yield on the three-month T-bill, considered one of the safest investments, fell to 0.02 percent from 0.04 percent late Friday.

The dollar was mostly lower against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.

Wall Street shrugged off a larger-than-expected drop in sales of existing homes last month as investors instead focus on the government's rescue for Citigroup. And while the housing numbers fell short of expectations, Wall Street expected sales would fall sharply after last month's upheaval in the financial markets.

The National Association of Realtors says sales of existing homes fell 3.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.98 million in October. That's down from 5.14 million in September.

Citi shares surged $2.61, or 69 percent, to $6.38 on word of the government's injection of capital into the company.

Health care company Johnson & Johnson said Monday it would acquire Omrix Biopharmaceuticals Inc. for $438 million. The move is aimed at expanding J&J's surgical product unit; J&J will pay $25 per share for the company, an 18 percent premium over Omrix's close Friday of $21.16.

J&J rose 62 cents to $58.97, while Omrix rose $3.41, or 16 percent, to $24.57.

Overseas, in afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 jumped 5.32 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 7.49 percent, and France's CAC-40 rose 7.34 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 1.59 percent; markets in Japan were closed for a holiday.

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