"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week.

Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.

That could set stocks up for more volatility following a week of sharp gains that put the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> on Friday at the highest close since December 31, 2007. The index also registered its biggest weekly percentage gain in more than a year.

Based on a Reuters analysis, Europe ranks among the chief concerns cited by companies that warned on fourth-quarter results. Uncertainty about the region and its weak economic outlook were cited by more than half of the 25 largest S&P 500 companies that issued warnings.

In the most recent earnings conference calls, macroeconomic worries were cited by 10 companies while the U.S. "fiscal cliff" was cited by at least nine as reasons for their earnings warnings.

"The number of things that could go wrong isn't so high, but the magnitude of how wrong they could go is what's worrisome," said Kurt Winters, senior portfolio manager for Whitebox Mutual Funds in Minneapolis.

Negative-to-positive guidance by S&P 500 companies for the fourth quarter was 3.6 to 1, the second worst since the third quarter of 2001, according to Thomson Reuters data.

U.S. lawmakers narrowly averted the "fiscal cliff" by coming to a last-minute agreement on a bill to avoid steep tax hikes this weeks -- driving the rally in stocks -- but the battle over further spending cuts is expected to resume in two months.

Investors also have seen a revival of worries about Europe's sovereign debt problems, with Moody's in November downgrading France's credit rating and debt crises looming for Spain and other countries.

"You have a recession in Europe as a base case. Europe is still the biggest trading partner with a lot of U.S. companies, and it's still a big chunk of global capital spending," said Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York.

Among companies citing worries about Europe was eBay , whose chief financial officer, Bob Swan, spoke of "macro pressures from Europe" in the company's October earnings conference call.

REVENUE WORRIES

One of the biggest worries voiced about earnings has been whether companies will be able to continue to boost profit growth despite relatively weak revenue growth.

S&P 500 revenue fell 0.8 percent in the third quarter for the first decline since the third quarter of 2009, Thomson Reuters data showed. Earnings growth for the quarter was a paltry 0.1 percent after briefly dipping into negative territory.

On top of that, just 40 percent of S&P 500 companies beat revenue expectations in the third quarter, while 64.2 percent beat earnings estimates, the Thomson Reuters data showed.

For the fourth quarter, estimates are slightly better but are well off estimates for the quarter from just a few months earlier. S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.8 percent while revenue is expected to have gone up 1.9 percent.

Back in October, earnings growth for the fourth quarter was forecast up 9.9 percent.

In spite of the cautious outlooks, some analysts still see a good chance for earnings beats this reporting period.

"The thinking is you need top line growth for earnings to continue to expand, and we've seen the market defy that," said Mike Jackson, founder of Denver-based investment firm T3 Equity Labs.

Based on his analysis, energy, industrials and consumer discretionary are the S&P sectors most likely to beat earnings expectations in the upcoming season, while consumer staples, materials and utilities are the least likely to beat, Jackson said.

Sounding a positive note on Friday, drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co said it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.

(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Malala Yousafzai, Shot by Pakistani Taliban, Is Discharged From Hospital

LONDON — Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head three months ago by the Taliban for advocating the education of girls, has been discharged from a British hospital. Doctors said she had made “excellent progress” and would be staying with her family nearby before returning for further surgery to rebuild her skull in about four weeks.

Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, via Reuters

 Medical experts say Ms. Yousafzai, 15, has a good chance of making a full recovery because of her youth, but the long-term impact of her head injuries remains unclear.

“Following discussions with Malala and her medical team, we decided that she would benefit from being at home with her parents and two brothers,” said Dr. Dave Rosser, the medical director.

Video released by Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham showed Ms. Yousafzai walking slowly out of a ward, wearing a head scarf and accompanied by a nurse.

The release was a promising turn for the teenage activist. Her shooting brought global condemnation of the Pakistani Taliban, whose fighters killed six female aid workers this week in the same region in northwestern Pakistan where Ms. Yousafzai was shot.

On Oct. 9, gunmen halted her school bus as it went through Mingora, the main town in the Swat Valley, singled her out and opened fire. A bullet grazed her brain, nearly killing her, and traveled through her head before lodging in her neck.

Six days later, after emergency treatment in Pakistan, she was airlifted to the hospital in Birmingham, which specializes in treating British soldiers wounded in action in Afghanistan.

Medical experts say Ms. Yousafzai has a good chance of making a full recovery because of her youth, but the long-term impact of her head injuries remains unclear.

In recent weeks, she has left the hospital regularly to spend time with her father, Ziauddin; her mother, Toorpekai; and her younger brothers, Khushal and Atul. The Pakistani government is paying for her treatment.

Ms. Yousafzai rose to prominence in 2009 with a blog for the BBC’s Urdu-language service that described life in Swat under Taliban rule. Later, she was featured in a documentary by The New York Times.

Now her father, a school headmaster, has accepted a three-year position as education attaché at the Pakistani Consulate in Birmingham, making it unlikely that the family will return to Pakistan anytime soon. In any event, it may be too dangerous.

The Taliban have vowed to attack the teenager again, and last month hundreds of students in Swat protested against plans to name their school after Ms. Yousafzai, saying it could endanger their lives. After she heard of the protest, she too asked that her name be removed from the school.

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Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor Give Inspiring Performances in The Impossible

By PEOPLE Movie Critic Alynda Wheat

01/04/2013 at 01:15 PM EST

Tom Holland and Naomi Watts in The Impossible

Summit Entertainment

    

At the very least, The Impossible will make you want to grab your loved ones and never let them go. It could also turn a sensitive viewer – and who isn't, in these troubling days? – into a ball of anxiety.

The movie (in theaters now) stars Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor and tells the true story of the Belon family, who were on a Christmas vacation in Thailand when they were torn apart by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that claimed more than 200,000 souls.

After days of laughing in the sun and splashing in the surf, Maria (Watts), Henry (McGregor) and their three boys are lounging at the beachside pool when the sea reaches up to snatch everything in its wake. (The stunning scene easily rivals Flight's plane crash or Life of Pi's sinking ship among recent jaw-dropping on-screen disasters.)

The deluge leaves Maria horribly gashed, clinging to her eldest son, Lucas (impressive newcomer Tom Holland), as water and debris smash into them. Neither knows what's become of Maria's husband, Henry, and their littlest boys. Their tale of survival is equal parts will, luck and the kindnesses of many strangers.

Watts and McGregor give performances that are inspiring and heartbreaking at the same time. It's difficult to watch a film so intense, but you'll be glad you did.

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FDA proposes sweeping new food safety rules

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed the most sweeping food safety rules in decades, requiring farmers and food companies to be more vigilant in the wake of deadly outbreaks in peanuts, cantaloupe and leafy greens.

The long-overdue regulations are aimed at reducing the estimated 3,000 deaths a year from foodborne illness. Just since last summer, outbreaks of listeria in cheese and salmonella in peanut butter, mangoes and cantaloupe have been linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as seven deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The actual number of those sickened is likely much higher.

The FDA's proposed rules would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers' hands are washed, irrigation water is clean, and that animals stay out of fields. Food manufacturers will have to submit food safety plans to the government to show they are keeping their operations clean.

Many responsible food companies and farmers are already following the steps that the FDA would now require them to take. But officials say the requirements could have saved lives and prevented illnesses in some of the large-scale outbreaks that have hit the country in recent years.

In a 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe that claimed 33 lives, for example, FDA inspectors found pools of dirty water on the floor and old, dirty processing equipment at the Colorado farm where the cantaloupes were grown. In a peanut butter outbreak this year linked to 42 salmonella illnesses, inspectors found samples of salmonella throughout a New Mexico peanut processing plant and multiple obvious safety problems, such as birds flying over uncovered trailers of peanuts and employees not washing their hands.

Under the new rules, companies would have to lay out plans for preventing those sorts of problems and how they would correct them.

"The rules go very directly to preventing the types of outbreaks we have seen," said Michael Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods.

The new rules come exactly two years to the day President Barack Obama's signed food safety legislation passed by Congress. The 2011 law required the agency to propose a first installment of the rules a year ago, but the Obama administration held them until after the election. Food safety advocates sued the administration to win their release.

In an effort to stave off protests from farmers, the farm rules are tailored to apply only to certain fruits and vegetables that pose the greatest risk, like berries, melons, leafy greens and other foods that are often eaten raw. A farm that produces green beans that will be canned and cooked, for example, would not be regulated.

None of the proposed regulations would take effect until after a 120-day comment period. The FDA also is giving the farmers ample time beyond that to comply. Larger farms wouldn't be regulated for more than two years; smaller farms would have even more time.

The farm and manufacturing rules are only one part of the food safety law. The bill also authorized more surprise inspections by the FDA and gave the agency additional powers to shut down food facilities. In addition, the law required stricter standards on imported foods. The agency said it will soon propose other overdue rules to ensure that importers verify overseas food is safe and to improve food safety audits overseas.

Food safety advocates frustrated over the last year as the rules stalled praised the proposed action.

"The new law should transform the FDA from an agency that tracks down outbreaks after the fact, to an agency focused on preventing food contamination in the first place," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

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Wall Street inches up after data; Apple extends fall

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks edged higher on Friday and the S&P 500 was on track for its biggest weekly gain in over a year after a jobs report showed employers kept the pace of hiring steady in December.

The S&P 500 index's weekly gain would be its largest since December 2011. The index recorded the largest daily gain in more than a year on Wednesday following the "fiscal cliff" agreement.

Shares of Apple Inc dropped 2.3 percent to $529.62, continuing its downward path of recent months and pressuring the Nasdaq.

Adding to concerns about the iPhone maker's ability to produce more innovative products, rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is expected to widen its lead over Apple in global smartphone sales this year with growth of 35 percent. Market researcher Strategy Analytics said Samsung had a broad product lineup.

The market improved modestly after data from the Institute for Supply Management, which showed the U.S. service sector grew at its fastest pace in 10 months in December, boosted by a rise in new orders.

"The jobs number today was somewhat benign. It was pretty close to what estimates were, so there wasn't much to draw out volatility," said Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York.

"I get the sense we're just sort of going to digest the events of earlier this week," he said, referring to the fiscal cliff deal.

The Labor Department said payrolls outside the farming sector grew by 155,000 jobs last month, slightly below November's level. Gains in employment were distributed broadly throughout the economy, from manufacturing and construction to healthcare.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 19.04 points, or 0.14 percent, at 13,410.40. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 4.47 points, or 0.31 percent, at 1,463.84. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 4.06 points, or 0.13 percent, at 3,104.62.

Eli Lilly and Co stock rose 3.7 percent to $51.57 after the pharmaceuticals maker said it expects its 2013 earnings to increase to $3.75 to $3.90 per share, excluding items, from $3.30 to $3.40 per share in 2012.

Shares of Mosaic Co gained 2.7 percent to $58.29. Excluding items, the fertilizer producer's quarterly earnings beat analysts' expectations, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. [ID:nL4N0A93GG]

The Mosaic move helped boost the S&P Materials index <.gspm> to 0.8 percent, the biggest gainer of the major sector indexes.

The rise in payrolls shown by the jobs data did not make a dent in the still-high U.S. unemployment rate, but it calmed fears about the possibility of the U.S. Federal Reserve ending its highly stimulative monetary policy.

Concerns about the duration of the Fed's stimulus program prompted a pull-back from the market Thursday after a rally.

Minutes from the Fed's December policy meeting, released Thursday, showed Fed officials were increasingly worried about the risks of asset purchases to financial markets, though they looked set to continue with the open-ended stimulus program for now.

"I think you saw that in the reaction yesterday," said Michael James, senior trader at Wedbush Morgan in Los Angeles, adding that he thinks the equity markets will not be dragged further by the Fed minutes.

(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski and Kenneth Barry)

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Gérard Depardieu, Citizen of Russia

But since then, a public feud between Mr. Depardieu and French officials has continued to simmer over Mr. Depardieu’s complaint a few days earlier about France’s high tax rates on the wealthy. French politicians and commentators have lambasted him for renouncing his French citizenship and registering as a resident of Néchin in Belgium, which has lower taxes. And on Thursday, the Kremlin announced that Mr. Putin had kept his promise and had signed a decree making Mr. Depardieu a citizen of Russia.

A spokesman for Mr. Putin, Dmitri Peskov, said that Mr. Depardieu had recently applied for citizenship, and that it was granted in honor of his cultural achievements.

“The thing is that Depardieu has been a part of large film projects and has acted many parts, including the part of Rasputin,” Mr. Peskov told the Interfax news agency. Referring to a television movie about the mad monk, he added, “This film has not been shown here, but it is a very bold and innovative interpretation of the character.”

It seemed likely, however, that Mr. Putin also saw a poetic opportunity in the chance for Russia, long known for losing wealthy citizens to the West, to claim one in return — and not just anyone, but a macho actor instantly recognizable by a giant nose that seems made for sniffing Bordeaux by the barrel.

That Mr. Depardieu might find Russia an attractive place in which to settle down, or at least to declare as his official tax address, fits in well with a narrative that Mr. Putin has developed in recent months portraying Russia not just as a geopolitical equal of Western powers, but as superior in many respects, especially in terms of its performance during the economic downturn.

“On the whole, we made a recovery from the crisis even faster than other countries,” Mr. Putin said. “Just look at the recession in Europe. Russia has posted growth, albeit a modest one, but we still have a much better situation than in the once-prosperous euro zone, or even in the United States.”

Guerrar and Co., a media relations firm that represents Mr. Depardieu, declined to comment on the Kremlin’s announcement.

If Mr. Depardieu chooses to take up Russian citizenship, he would potentially trade steep French income tax rates, which he said now claim 85 percent of his income, and even Belgian rates of 60 percent or higher, for Russia’s flat 13 percent income tax. The value-added tax, a sales tax on goods and services, is 18 percent in Russia compared with nearly 20 percent in France, while Russian social security taxes are 30 percent compared with 50 percent in France.

But aside from tax savings, Mr. Putin suggested that French officials were too brusque in their response to Mr. Depardieu’s complaints and that he might find that Russians simply understand him better as an artist. “Actors, musicians and artists are people with a special, delicate psychological makeup and, as we say in Russia, the artist is easily offended,” Mr. Putin said at the news conference on Dec. 20. “So I understand Mr. Depardieu’s feelings.”

Mr. Putin at the time went out of his way to say that he meant no ill will toward the French. “Among our foreign partners, France stands out,” he said, prefacing his response to a reporter who asked if he had offered Mr. Depardieu residency. “We have had close spiritual ties for centuries now, despite tragic events in our common history.”

Mr. Putin also said that he regarded Mr. Depardieu as thoroughly French as Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. agent, is Russian. “I must say that even though he said — and I read his statement — that he considers himself a European, a citizen of the world, I know for a fact that he considers himself a Frenchman,” Mr. Putin said. “I know this since we have very friendly, personal relations, even though we have not met many times. He loves his country, its history, its culture; that’s his life.”

Mr. Depardieu, it turns out, is no stranger to Russia. In October, he visited Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, where he attended a celebration of the capital’s 194th anniversary with the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, who has invited Mr. Depardieu to live there.

Video of the October event shows Mr. Depardieu exhorting an appreciative crowd in a mixture of Russian and French: “Glory to Grozny! Glory to Chechnya! Chechnya is strong! Glory to Kadyrov!”

Mr. Depardieu has also agreed to star in a movie written by Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, the former Soviet Republic.

A spokeswoman for the French government, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, said Thursday that the decision to grant Mr. Depardieu a passport was “an exclusive prerogative of the head of the Russian state,” and declined to comment further, Europe 1 radio reported.

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More leaked BlackBerry Z10 pictures emerge along with new details

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Jayden Lamb's Happy Spirit Kept Alive Through Strangers' Donations

Heroes Among Us

By Stephen M. Silverman

01/03/2013 at 12:45 PM EST

Jayden Lamb

Courtesy Jayden Lamb Family

Jayden Lamb was not even 9 years old when he died the week after last Thanksgiving, two years into his battle against cancer.

"It was a short life but a big impact," his father, Tom Lamb, of Midland, Mich., told the MLive.com. "There was something about him, I'm not sure if it was the message he had to get out, but he was so happy."

Those who loved Jayden – the many family and friends – have found a way to honor his memory: by spreading goodwill through the generous and genuine helping of others.

The local pay-it-forward movement began when Jayden's father and stepmother, Tom and Nicole Lamb, bought Starbucks coffee and pairs of shoes for strangers, intended as a means to ease their pain. Now, there is the Keep on Truckin' Team Jayden Facebook page, which allows others to follow their lead.

More than 35,000 people have joined the Facebook page and shared countless examples of paying it forward in Jayden's name. Stories of pizzas, toys and gift cards being presented to total strangers started pouring in. One anonymous person even donated a diamond ring to the Salvation Army in Midland, reportedly worth $2,000, with a note attached that read: "Paying it Forward Jayden Style. God Bless," according to the Facebook page. And local TV station NBC 25 reports there have also been cases of $100 tips given in Jayden's name, too.

"It's amazing just to see all the people helping each other and seeing so many people compassionate in his name," said Tom Lamb. "To see the people he has touched, it's just unbelievable to me and my wife."

As the recipient of someone's generosity, Jennifer Campbell of Midland was able to provide Christmas for her four children. After visiting the local Kmart to cancel her holiday layaway, Campbell discovered that the entire balance, minus one penny, had already been paid off anonymously.

"I want to thank whoever saved my kids' Christmas," said Campbell. "Jayden is smiling so big in heaven right now."

His parents agree.

"It's extremely hard to lose a child to anything," said his dad, adding: "[But] it makes me feel my child has a made a difference to people."

Know a hero? Send suggestions to heroesamongus@peoplemag.com. For more inspiring stories, read the latest issue of PEOPLE magazine

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Flu? Malaria? Disease forecasters look to the sky

NEW YORK (AP) — Only a 10 percent chance of showers today, but a 70 percent chance of flu next month.

That's the kind of forecasting health scientists are trying to move toward, as they increasingly include weather data in their attempts to predict disease outbreaks.

In one recent study, two scientists reported they could predict — more than seven weeks in advance — when flu season was going to peak in New York City. Theirs was just the latest in a growing wave of computer models that factor in rainfall, temperature or other weather conditions to forecast disease.

Health officials are excited by this kind of work and the idea that it could be used to fine-tune vaccination campaigns or other disease prevention efforts.

At the same time, experts note that outbreaks are influenced as much, or more, by human behavior and other factors as by the weather. Some argue weather-based outbreak predictions still have a long way to go. And when government health officials warned in early December that flu season seemed to be off to an early start, they said there was no evidence it was driven by the weather.

This disease-forecasting concept is not new: Scientists have been working on mathematical models to predict outbreaks for decades and have long factored in the weather. They have known, for example, that temperature and rainfall affect the breeding of mosquitoes that carry malaria, West Nile virus and other dangerous diseases.

Recent improvements in weather-tracking have helped, including satellite technology and more sophisticated computer data processing.

As a result, "in the last five years or so, there's been quite an improvement and acceleration" in weather-focused disease modeling, said Ira Longini, a University of Florida biostatistician who's worked on outbreak prediction projects.

Some models have been labeled successes.

In the United States, researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the University of New Mexico tried to predict outbreaks of hantavirus in the late 1990s. They used rain and snow data and other information to study patterns of plant growth that attract rodents. People catch the disease from the droppings of infected rodents.

"We predicted what would happen later that year," said Gregory Glass, a Johns Hopkins researcher who worked on the project.

More recently, in east Africa, satellites have been used to predict rainfall by measuring sea-surface temperatures and cloud density. That's been used to generate "risk maps" for Rift Valley fever — a virus that spreads from animals to people and in severe cases can cause blindness or death. Researchers have said the system in some cases has given two to six weeks advance warning.

Last year, other researchers using satellite data in east Africa said they found that a small change in average temperature was a warning sign cholera cases would double within four months.

"We are getting very close to developing a viable forecasting system" against cholera that can help health officials in African countries ramp up emergency vaccinations and other efforts, said a statement by one of the authors, Rita Reyburn of the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, South Korea.

Some diseases are hard to forecast, such as West Nile virus. Last year, the U.S. suffered one of its worst years since the virus arrived in 1999. There were more than 2,600 serious illnesses and nearly 240 deaths.

Officials said the mild winter, early spring and very hot summer helped spur mosquito breeding and the spread of the virus. But the danger wasn't spread uniformly. In Texas, the Dallas area was particularly hard-hit, while other places, including some with similar weather patterns and the same type of mosquitoes, were not as affected.

"Why Dallas, and not areas with similar ecological conditions? We don't really know," said Roger Nasci of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is chief of the CDC branch that tracks insect-borne viruses.

Some think flu lends itself to outbreak forecasting — there's already a predictability to the annual winter flu season. But that's been tricky, too.

Seasonal flu reports come from doctors' offices, but those show the disease when it's already spreading. Some researchers have studied tweets on Twitter and searches on Google, but their work has offered a jump of only a week or two on traditional methods.

In the study of New York City flu cases published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors said they could forecast, by up to seven weeks, the peak of flu season.

They designed a model based on weather and flu data from past years, 2003-09. In part, their design was based on earlier studies that found flu virus spreads better when the air is dry and turns colder. They made calculations based on humidity readings and on Google Flu Trends, which tracks how many people are searching each day for information on flu-related topics (often because they're beginning to feel ill).

Using that model, they hope to try real-time predictions as early as next year, said Jeffrey Shaman of Columbia University, who led the work.

"It's certainly exciting," said Lyn Finelli, the CDC's flu surveillance chief. She said the CDC supports Shaman's work, but agency officials are eager to see follow-up studies showing the model can predict flu trends in places different from New York, like Miami.

Despite the optimism by some, Dr. Edward Ryan, a Harvard University professor of immunology and infectious diseases, is cautious about weather-based prediction models. "I'm not sure any of them are ready for prime time," he said.

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Wall Street rises after post-cliff deal rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged up on Thursday, adding to Wall Street's biggest single-day rally in a year on Wednesday after a deal in Washington to avert the "fiscal cliff."

Investors were more wary than in the previous sessions as they turned their focus to upcoming battles in Congress, including likely bitter fights over spending cuts and raising the federal debt ceiling.

"I would be cautious of big moves going forward. There are still some clouds over the horizon, with the fiscal issue of the government. We don't know how they're going to pan out, but in all likelihood there's not going to be a calamity," said Jeff Meyerson, head of trading at Sunrise Securities in New York.

Wednesday's rally began 2013 with Wall Street's best performance in over a year after the House of Representatives passed a measure to avert the fiscal cliff, which could have caused a recession.

The S&P Energy index <.gspe> rose the most of the major sector indexes, at 0.52 percent, led in part by CONSOL Energy , which said it expects to sell more non-core assets in 2013. CONSOL was up 3.5 percent to $32.09.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 6.30 points, or 0.05 percent, at 13,418.85. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 2.05 points, or 0.14 percent, at 1,464.47. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 5.12 points, or 0.16 percent, at 3,117.39.

Retailers were mixed on Thursday after releasing December sales reports in an uncertain economy.

Shares in U.S. retailer Costco Wholesale Corp rose 1.4 percent to $102.88 after the company reported a better-than-expected 9 percent rise in December sales at stores open at least a year, primarily boosted by an additional sales day in the reporting period.

Gap Inc stock rose nearly 2 percent to $31.99 following news that the retailer will buy women's fashion boutique Intermix Inc for $130 million to enter the luxury clothes market, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Family Dollar Stores Inc stock dropped 11.7 percent to $56.52 on the company's report of lower-than-expected quarterly profit as its emphasis on selling more everyday items like cigarettes and soft drinks put pressure on margins.

Hiring data did not boost equity prices despite showing U.S. private employers added more jobs than expected in December.

"The report now sets the stage, as we expect a strong non-farm payroll reading on Friday," said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York

The government's broader monthly payrolls report, due on Friday, is expected to show the economy created 150,000 jobs compared with 146,000 in November, according to a Reuters poll. The U.S. unemployment rate is seen holding steady at 7.7 percent.

Another report on Thursday showed that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, but year-end holidays likely distorted the picture of labor market conditions.

(Additional reporting by Angela Moon, Editing by Bernadette Baum and Kenneth Barry)

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