Great news! President Bush announced early this week that he is once again "deciding" things. Appearing in the Rose Garden with Secretary Paulsen, the president announced the actions being taken to rescue Citi.

The announcement also declared that he may very well make more decisions to bring stability to the banking system and restore the flow of credit to the business and consumer markets.

The news was greeted with enthusiasm by the stock market, while the credit markets adopted more of a "wait and see" attitude. The previous week’s new lows on the benchmark 10-year and 30-year treasuries were surpassed, with the 10-year note yield increasing to 2.97 % from the previous week’s 3.06% and the 30-year moving from 3.61 % to a new record close at 3.49%.

Investment banking firms enjoying their new status as virtual subsidiaries of the U.S. Treasury took advantage of the climate for government guaranteed debt, led by Goldman Sachs sale of $5.0 billion in notes due in 2012 at a rate of 3.367%.

The most eagerly awaited news was the announcement over three days of President-elect Obama’s economic team. Led by Treasury Secretary-to-be Timothy Geithner and director appointee of the National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers, Obama’s team has sparkling credentials and has been warmly received by Wall Street and Congressional leaders.

The other major news event of the week was the coining of a new acronym, TALF, which stands for Term Asset-Based Securities Loan Facility, which is designed to re-establish access to the credit markets for consumers.

The release of economic data did not take a back seat to these significant developments. While the volume of these releases was diminished due to the shortened holiday week, there were some significant surprises on the negative side.

Major releases for the week included the following:

The bond market reacted with continued flight to quality, driving the benchmark treasury yields to the record levels noted earlier in this report. Corporate bond prices mostly declined, with the exception of those with the guarantee of the US Treasury.

This week will have an even smaller volume of economic reports. Those being released, however, are likely to show continued weakness from the consumer sector.

Key reports are the following:

Negative expectations are so built in to these forecasts that surprises on the downside will not result in major reactions. Reports better than expected will, however, produce positive reactions in the markets.

This article was written by Jamie Dlugosch, contributor to InvestorPlace.com. For more actionable insight like this, visit www.InvestorPlace.com.