Dan Bobkoff

As the volume of online orders surged, some retailers and package delivery companies were unable to fulfill promises to deliver gifts by Christmas. UPS acknowledged it was overwhelmed by all the late traffic. In response to complaints, Amazon says it is offering gift cards and refunds for shipping charges.

For freelancers and artists living in expensive cities like New York, the home-sharing site Airbnb has become a way to subsidize their rents. It's also often illegal. With the site's users in the crosshairs of New York's attorney general, and questions elsewhere, some now wonder if the good times are going to end.

JP Morgan Chase reported something unusual today: a loss. The bank has been forced to set aside a huge cash reserve to cover expected fines and related legal costs. In the most recent quarter, the set-aside was so large — $9.1 billion — that it produced a net loss for the bank.

For the first time, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has referred a criminal case to the Department of Justice. The bureau accuses a debt relief company called Mission Settlement Agency of bilking consumers out of millions. The suit alleges the company lied about fees and its results.

Job growth plummeted in March after several months of solid growth, with employers adding just 88,000 new workers to their payrolls. No one knows exactly why the job market stalled, but among the theories is the payroll tax increase, the sequester, more trouble in Europe and a seasonal pattern where hiring picks up in winter and tails off during the spring.

The jobs report for February came in surprisingly strong this morning. Employers added 236,000 jobs to payrolls and the unemployment rate fell to a four-year low of 7.7 percent.