The Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index dropped 2.1 points from the end of December. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Federal Reserve is “on track” to announce another reduction in QE3 bond-buying. In Asia, shares were generally down on Monday. In Europe, Germany’s DAX dropped 0.3 percent, with Deutsche Bank leading the decline (down 5.4 percent), because the banking giant took an unexpected loss in the fourth quarter.

U.S. housing starts dropped by 9.8 percent from the November rate. The December 2013 rate was, however, 1.6 percent higher than the previous year. There were a little more than 4 million job openings on the last business day of November, up from 3.9 million in October. Over the weekend the FDIC closed DuPage National Bank in West Chicago, marking the first U.S. bank failure of 2014.

Homebuilder confidence edged down a bit, dropping one point this month. U.S. apartment market conditions weakened a bit at the beginning of the first quarter of 2014 compared with three months earlier. And foreclosures dropped 26 percent in 2013.

The U.S. took in a surplus of $53.2 billion during the last month of 2013, which was more than expected. And chain-store comparable sales were up 3.4 percent in December 2013, compared with the same month a year earlier.

The economy created only 74,000 new jobs in December – the fewest in about three years – assumed due to severe weather conditions recently. Total hiring was roughly the same in 2013 – a 2.2 million net increase – as it was in 2012. And the Fed’s tapering of its bond-buying is slated to begin this month.

The U.S. economy created 74,000 jobs in December. Retailers finished the 2013 holiday season with increased sales. And commercial and multi-family mortgage lending is expected to increase in 2014, as lenders want to place more loans than before.

Home prices nationwide increased 11.8 percent in November 2013 compared to the same month a year earlier. On a month-over-month basis, however, the pace home price increases seems to indicate that the upsurge is slowing down. And according to the Energy Information Administration, next year domestic crude oil will reach the highest level in more than four decades, which is also expected to help drive the price of gas down in the United States.

The Institute for Supply Management reported that its Non-Manufacturing Index came in at 53.0 for December, a drop from 55.4 in November. And new orders for manufactured goods were up by 1.8 percent to an annualized $498 billion.

Auto sales peaked at 7.5 percent year over year. In a speech in Philadelphia, outgoing Fed chairman Ben Bernanke sounded optimistic on the economy in 2014 and beyond.