U.S. construction spending during November came in 1 percent higher than the revised October estimate. But initial unemployment claims decreased by 2,000 from the previous week.

The National Association of Realtors’s pending home sales index inched up to 101.7 in November from a downwardly revised 101.5 in October. And Lender Processing Services reported that its index for U.S. home prices increased 0.1 percent in October.

Consumer spending for a wide variety of goods associated with gift-giving from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24 was up 2.3 percent compared with the same period last year. And total personal income increased by 0.2 percent in November.

Sales nationwide of new single-family houses in November were 2.1 percent below the October rate. Durable goods orders surged 3.5 percent in November. And coincident indexes for November 2013 increased in 46 states.

Wednesday was the Day of the Taper, with plans for the central bank to buy $10 billion less worth of bonds in January. And private housing starts in November came in 22.7 percent higher than the revised October estimate.

Total industrial production in November 2013 was 3.2 percent above a year ago. Southern California experienced a year-over-year drop in residential sales in November. And the Senate seems ready to approve the budget measure passed by the U.S. House of Representatives recently, which would undo some of the harsher effects of the sequester, and forestall another federal government shutdown early next year.

The Rederal Reserve will hold a meeting this week followed by Bernanke’s last press conference, during which he is expected to make an announcement about the central bank’s bond-buying program, currently set at $85 billion a month. The U.S. producer price index for finished goods edged down 0.1 percent in November. And another FDIC-insured national bank closed this year, marking 24 banks in total that failed.

U.S. retail sales edged up 0.7 percent in November compared with October. CRE prices stabilized in October. And for the week ending Dec. 7, initial jobless claims increased by 68,000 from the previous week.

The total state tax collections increased during the second quarter of 2013, as well as local tax revenues. And the small-business optimism index increased slightly in November.

The Pending Home Sales Index dipped. But e-commerce sales for the third quarter of 2013 increased by 3.6 percent compared with the second quarter.