Scott Horsley

The retail report from the Commerce Department shows overall spending at stores and restaurants didn't budge in December as cautious shoppers watched their pennies.

Spending on cars, furniture, and electronics fell, while spending on groceries and gasoline was slightly higher.

Gasoline prices are inching up.

AAA finds the average price of a gallon of regular gas is up 12 cents from a month ago, but still 22 cents lower than this time last year.

Stock in Coca-Cola lost a little fizz after the company projected a slower sales growth than forecasters were expecting this year.

Coke raised prices in North America by 4 percent in its most recent quarter.

For those who are thirsty for savings, the company began offering smaller cans.

Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

The January jobs report was supposed to come out last Friday, but its release was delayed because Labor Department number crunchers were briefly sent home last week during the government shutdown.

Wednesday's report will show whether the anemic pace of job growth in recent months picked up at all in January and what happened to the unemployment rate.

An annual revision in the report is expected to show job growth last year was weaker than initially shown.

Investors will also keep an eye out this week for a report on retail sales for the month of December.

Personal spending is the biggest driver of the U.S.

economy.

It's remained strong, thanks in large part to spending by upper-income households.

Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

The price of Bitcoin has rebounded after a steep drop on Thursday.

At one point, the volatile cryptocurrency had lost more than half its value from its record high last October.

Investors who were skeptical about all the money Google's parent company is spending on artificial intelligence have similar questions about the payoff from Amazon's big AI investment.

The online retailer and cloud computing giant says it plans to spend $200 billion on capital investments this year.