Markets Greet 2014 With a Slide Wall Street opened lower on Thursday, after the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index wrapped up its best year since 1997, as investors digested data on manufacturing and the labor market. In early trading, the S.&P. 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average were down 0.5 percent, while the Nasdaq composite fell 0.8 percent. World share markets made a soft start to 2014 on Thursday in the wake of disappointing data on Chinese manufacturing, while investors showed renewed appetite for commodities and the dollar as the new year got underway. Gold grabbed the limelight with a 1.5 percent rise, to $1,220 an ounce, recouping just a little of the losses that made last year its worst in three decades. The S.&P. 500 closed out 2013 with a spectacular 29.6 percent gain for the year - its best annual performance since 1997, adding $3.75 trillion in market value. The Dow climbed 26.5 percent in its best year since 1995. The Nasdaq jumped 38.3 percent, its best year since 2009. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 2,000, to a seasonally adjusted 339,000, the second weekly decline in a row, suggesting labor market conditions continued to steadily improve. In another sign of economic improvement, financial data firm Markit said its final United States Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index rose to 55 points last month, beating November's 54.7 reading and an initial December estimate of 54.4. "Investors are going to take a deep breath and try to assess a new set of data for the year, that may mean waiting until we see employment data next week," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank in Chicago. In China, official and private manufacturing surveys showed factory activity slowed in December, reinforcing views that China's economy moderated in the last quarter of 2013. Most Asian markets closed lower. Separately, Markit's Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index for the euro zone rose to 52.7 in December from 51.6 the previous month, its fastest rate since mid-2011, on brisk business in Germany and Italy. European stocks had started the year at a five-and-a-half-year high, but an initial push higher proved short-lived despite the upbeat data. In afternoon trading, London's FTSE 100 fell 0.4 percent, Paris's CAC 40 slumped 1.2 percent and Frankfurt's DAX was 1 percent lower. Volume on Wall Street is once again expected to be on the light side, as many market participants remain out of the office because of the New Year's holiday-interrupted week. Apple dipped 1.3 percent after Wells Fargo cut its rating on the company to "market perform" from "outperform." In currencies, the dollar slipped 0.3 percent versus the Japanese currency, at 104.94 yen. The euro was down to $1.3646, after a recent two-year peak of $1.3892. There remains a general assumption that rising United States Treasury yields will lift the dollar against the euro. Yields on United States 10-year paper are up at two-and-a-half year highs of 3.01 percent. Even shorter-dated rates have been rising as improving economic data justifies the Federal Reserve's decision to start tapering its asset-buying program. In oil markets, benchmark United States crude futures were trading $1.52 lower on Thursday, at $96.90 a barrel.