Global shares, dollar down ahead of earnings, bonds rise

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global shares fell and bond prices rose on Tuesday, with investors cautious ahead of a U.S. earnings season expected to show sluggish growth in quarterly corporate profits.
The dollar and euro fell against the yen as investors booked profits in the aftermath of swift and significant gains, but looser Bank of Japan monetary policy should limit the yen's upside.
The dollar was last down 0.75 percent at 87.11 yen, well off a 2-1/2-year high hit last Friday. The euro fell 1.02 percent at 113.96 yen.
U.S. corporate profits are expected to be higher than the third quarter's lackluster results, but analysts' estimates are down sharply from where they were in October.
Quarterly earnings are expected to grow 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Alcoa Inc reported a fourth-quarter profit of $242 million as cost cuts helped offset a drop in aluminum prices, marking the unofficial start to the earnings season as the first Dow component to release results.
Alcoa shares rose 7 cents to $9.20 in after-hours trade after closing 0.33 percent higher at $9.13 from Monday's close.
Early reports have suggested some signs of improvement. Monsanto Co reported strong first-quarter results and raised its full-year outlook, sending its shares 2.67 percent higher to close at $98.50.
Sears Holding Corp reported sales for the holiday season that were not as weak as many had feared, but the stock sank as the company's chief executive stepped down unexpectedly. Shares fell 6.43 percent to $40.16.
If earnings growth appears to be "less bad" than expected, that would fuel a near-term uptick in the market, according to Eric Wiegand, senior portfolio manager at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in New York. "There are still ample areas for concern," he added, citing policy worries in Washington and uneven economic growth.
The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 55.44 points, or 0.41 percent, at 13,328.85. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 4.74 points, or 0.32 percent, to 1,457.15. The Nasdaq Composite Index slid 7.01 points, or 0.23 percent, at 3,091.81.
Global shares measured by MSCI's all-country world index <.miwd00000pus> fell 0.33 percent to 345.73.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares closed down 0.1 percent at 1,160.20 as data showed the euro zone economy may be stabilizing, though at a weak level.
The euro slid 0.25 to 1.3082 against the dollar.
Euro zone business confidence improved again in December, but unemployment reached a record and households held back from spending in the run-up to Christmas, suggesting a recovery from recession will be slow. German industrial orders also fell more than forecast due to a sharp drop in demand from abroad.
"Things are bad. It is still consistent with recession, but at least they have stopped deteriorating," said Deutsche Bank economist Gilles Moec.
Prices for U.S. Treasuries rose as higher yields proved attractive and the first sale of coupon-bearing Treasury debt for the year drew strong non-dealer bidding.
The Treasury sold $32 billion of three-year notes on Tuesday at a high yield of 0.385 percent, just about where the market had expected.
The high direct takedown in this and the previous three-year auction could signal "a shift in investor bidding patterns at auctions, where buyers bypass dealers and go straight to the Treasury, while still able to clear the auction near the WI (when-issued) levels," wrote Nomura analysts after the sale.
The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note was up 10/32 in price to yield 1.8656 percent.
In commodity and metals markets, Brent crude oil rose 54 cents to settle at $111.94 per barrel, while U.S. light crude settled down 4 cents at $93.15.
Brent's premium over the U.S. West Texas Intermediate benchmark widened by more than 50 cents, with traders citing the start of the annual reweighting of the S&P GSCI commodity index, one of two leading indices for investors.
Copper rose 0.1 percent and gold rose $12.26 to $1,658.90 ahead of data on Thursday from China and the monthly meeting of the European Central Bank.
"The market is underpinned by expectations that a cyclical rebounding out of China will be positive for industrial metals, and there is more positive sentiment now in the market," said Robin Bhar, analyst at Societe Generale.

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Alcoa sees brighter 2013, but remains cautious

(Reuters) - Alcoa Inc , the largest aluminum producer in the U.S., expressed cautious optimism that demand for the metal will continue to grow in 2013, helped in part by global growth in the aerospace and construction markets.
The company posted a fourth-quarter profit on Tuesday, in line with Wall Street expectations, and handily beat expectations on revenue, helping calm investors' nerves after a rocky 2012.
"I'm more optimistic that 2013 is a year with upside potential compared to where we came from," Alcoa Chief Executive Klaus Kleinfeld told CNBC on Tuesday.
Shares of Alcoa rose 1.3 percent in after-hours trading, as investors were buoyed by Alcoa's turn to profit.
Analysts breathed a sigh of relief from the results of the first S&P 500 company to report fourth-quarter results, hoping it was a sign of things to come.
"I think it was a good solid quarter. Not a barnburner but a good quarter," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Asset Management in Bedford Hills. "It's certainly important in this type of environment to look at revenues."
Investors tend to scrutinize Alcoa's results for hints on where the overall economy is headed, as the company's aluminum products are used in the automotive, appliance and airline industries.
The company said it expects global aluminum consumption growth of 7 percent in 2013, up slightly from 6 percent in 2012. Alcoa continues to forecast a doubling of global aluminum demand between 2010 and 2020.
Alcoa forecasts global growth in the aerospace, automotive and construction markets, among other industries, in 2013.
PROFIT IN LINE
The earnings were a positive turn for Alcoa, whose core business of mining bauxite and producing aluminum has been hit in recent years by a persistently low metal price.
For the fourth quarter, the company reported net income of $242 million, or 21 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $191 million, or 18 cents per share, in the year-ago period.
Excluding one-time items, net income was $64 million, or 6 cents per share, in line with average analysts' expectations of 6 cents a share on revenue of $5.6 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Sales were $5.89 billion, beating analysts' expectations, but down 1.5 percent from the year-ago quarter as the average realized price per tonne of aluminum fell slightly.
Alcoa trimmed costs by 12 percent in the fourth quarter, due in part to fewer restructuring expenses.
The company's realized price for aluminum fell roughly 11 percent in 2012.

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Alcoa earnings as expected, revenue tops forecasts

NEW YORK (AP) -- Alcoa Inc. on Tuesday reported fourth-quarter earnings that met Wall Street's expectations, and the company said it expects slightly higher demand for aluminum this year.
The sluggish global economy has weakened prices for aluminum used in everything from airplanes to soda cans.
But Alcoa forecast demand growing 7 percent in 2013, up from a 6 percent gain in 2012. It sees the best prospects in aerospace but slower improvement in demand for autos, packaging, and building and construction materials.
Separately, the company announced that Chief Financial Officer Charles D. McLane Jr., 59, will retire and be replaced by William F. Oplinger, the chief operating officer of Alcoa's primary-products business unit. The change will happen April 1.
Oplinger, 45, joined Alcoa in 2000 and has held several finance and planning jobs. He is on the executive council, which plots company strategy.
In the fourth quarter, Alcoa's net income was $242 million, or 21 cents per share. That includes one-time gains like income from selling a hydroelectric project on the Tennessee-North Carolina border.
Without those gains, the company would have made 6 cents per share — exactly what analysts expected, according to FactSet — on revenue of $5.90 billion. Sales were higher than the $5.58 billion that analysts predicted.
A year ago, the company posted a fourth-quarter loss of $191 million, or 18 cents per share, on revenue of $5.99 billion, and a loss after special items of 3 cents per share.
The company said it hit record profits in its aluminum-rolling and product-making businesses while cutting costs in its mining and refining or "upstream" segment.
Chairman and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld said the company overcame volatile aluminum prices and global economic weakness and was in "strong position to maximize profitable growth" in 2013.
Kleinfeld said aerospace sales were helped by aircraft-order backlogs at Airbus and Boeing, plus improved profits at the world's airlines.
The price that Alcoa received for aluminum fell 2 percent from a year ago but rose nearly 5 percent from the third quarter. Shipments were flat from a year ago.
The low prices were a factor in the announcement last month by Moody's Investor Service that it could downgrade Alcoa's credit rating to junk status. Alcoa has been trying to reduce debt to keep its investment-grade rating. In the fourth quarter, it cut spending by 12 percent to $6.23 billion.
Alcoa is the first company in the Dow Jones industrial average to report fourth-quarter earnings. Because it makes aluminum for so many key industries, investors study Alcoa's results for clues about the health and direction of the overall economy.
Alcoa shares ended regular trading where they began, unchanged at $9.10. In after-hours trading following the earnings report, the stock rose 8 cents to $9.18.

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Veteran broker departures shift $133 billion client assets in 2012

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Brokerages saw top advisers depart in droves last year and shift $132.5 billion in client assets with them, a Reuters tally shows, creating headaches for some Wall Street banks at a time when wealth management is becoming an increasingly important part of business.
Unprecedented signing bonuses, cultural changes linked to acquisitions, a push to cross-sell company products, and a growing charm of joining regional outfits contributed to many of these exits which are likely to continue this year, recruiters and brokers said.
All told, at least 880 veteran brokers and their teams changed firms in 2012, according to the data, which tracks the moves of top individual advisers and teams that manage $100 million or more in client assets. That included the departure of at least 16 $1 billion-plus advisers or teams, a number wealth management recruiters say they usually see over several years, not in 12 months.
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management - the brokerage majority owned by Morgan Stanley and partially owned by Citigroup - felt the brunt of defections in 2012, with the departure of at least 243 veteran advisers who managed more than $39.2 billion. Bank of America Corp's Merrill lost at least 184 advisers who managed more than $28.5 billion.
The two largest U.S. brokerages by headcount each lost at least six teams that managed $1 billion or more in client assets apiece - easily the size of an entire office branch.
"Our strategy is to attract the industry's best talent for our clients, and to size our adviser population to meet market opportunity," Merrill spokesman Matt Card said.
Morgan Stanley declined to comment.
Several major Wall Street banks such as Morgan Stanley and UBS AG are betting on wealth management for steady income and growth, as a weak global economy and financial regulation hit profits from other businesses such as trading and investment banking. At Morgan Stanley, for example, the wealth management unit accounted for 44 percent of third-quarter revenue, excluding one-time charges.
While adviser defections may not immediately make a big dent in the more than $1 trillion in assets the top brokerages manage, the losses can add up over time. Losing $1 billion in client assets, for example, can translate into loss of more than $10 million in annual revenues for a firm.
"We'll start to see some impact on the revenue side of the equation," as bigger advisers continue to depart, said Memphis-based banking analyst Marty Mosby of Guggenheim Partners.
"(Bigger firms) will have to make sure their resources are being applied in the most efficient way possible," and will need to make existing client assets more productive, he said.
U.S. brokerages have already begun to move in that direction, adding incentives to their 2013 pay plans to coax advisers to sell bank products.
Wells Fargo & Co's Wells Fargo Advisors and UBS Wealth Management Americas fared better in terms of recruiting and retaining veteran advisers in 2012. UBS offered some of the richest retention and sign-on bonuses in the industry and Wells benefited from its independent brokerage division, which allows advisers to own their practices. Even so, at least 82 veteran advisers departed Wells and 67 left UBS.
UBS is "always looking at attracting the top advisers," while also making the firm a place advisers want to stay, spokeswoman Karina Byrne said. "Our low attrition rates show that we are succeeding."
Wells managing director Ron Sallett said 2012 was the second best recruiting year for the company's independent brokerage unit since it was founded more than a decade ago. "We think our firm is continuing to position itself in the market as the firm of choice," he said.
BIG BONUSES
Signing bonuses for top advisers are now around 350 percent of the broker's annual revenue, with 180 to 200 percent offered upfront, said Tom Lewis, a New Jersey-based lawyer for Stark & Stark. An adviser who generates about $1 million in annual revenue might receive as much as $2 million on day one from a rival firm.
"They're in a range that we haven't seen approached before," said Lewis, who works with advisers making the transition to a new firm. "It's a long-term investment, yet your short-term profitability suffers."
UBS, for example, said it had a 10 percent increase in compensation commitments and advances related to recruited financial advisers in the third quarter from the year prior. The cost-to-income ratio - a measure of profitability - at UBS's U.S. brokerage was at 86.1 percent at the end of September, compared with 66.5 percent for its global wealth management unit, which doesn't have to offer such bonuses.
Half of the big brokerage advisers who left their firms became independent advisers, joined an independent advisory firm or moved to a smaller firm like Raymond James Financial Inc or Ameriprise Financial Inc, the data shows. They took $35.2 billion in client assets with them.
"Our expectations for 2013 (recruiting) are very promising," said Raymond James' Private Client Group President Tash Elwyn.
These firms offer lower signing bonuses, but advisers who made the move say there are other attractions, such as the ability to focus more on their clients' investment needs rather than also worrying about the company's bottom line.
Departing wirehouse advisers also pointed to concerns about a perceived push to cross-sell bank or company-branded products at their old firms, increased layers of management and cultural conflicts stemming from the acquisition of their firm by larger companies.
Illinois-based advisers Ziv Ohel and William Duncan, who together managed $275 million in client assets at Morgan Stanley, left the firm in mid-November. Ohel said they joined Minneapolis-based Ameriprise because the firm focused more on financial planning and had less of a big brokerage mentality.
Independence is also increasingly attractive to advisers. HighTower Advisors LLC, Focus Financial Partners LLC and Dynasty Financial Partners LLC each lured at least one team with $1 billion or more in client assets.

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Global shares, oil dip, but growth prospects limit falls

 World stocks and oil prices eased on Monday ending a new year rally as some investors chose to book profits, but signs of a brightening global economic growth outlook limited the falls.
Wall Street looked to set to follow a similar path after the benchmark Standard & Poor's index surged to a five-year high on Friday when data showed employers kept up a steady pace of hiring in December and the vast services sector had expanded.
The numbers compounded the effect from the last-minute deal to avert a U.S. fiscal crisis reached at the start of the year and, along with surveys showing China's factory output rising, have boosted hopes for economic expansion worldwide in 2013.
"Overall, the market's positive trend is still intact," Lionel Jardin, head of institutional sales at Assya Capital in Paris, said of the trend in stocks. "The market is ripe for a pause, but with so much cash on the sidelines, there are a lot of buyers showing up each time we have a dip."
After touching a 22-month peak last week, the FTSE Eurofirst index of top European shares was down 0.2 percent at 1,164 points. Br itain's FTSE 100 index was down 0.3 percent, Germany's DAX indexfell 0.5 percent and France's CAC 40 eased 0.6 percent.
Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan, which reached their highest levels since August 2011 on Thursday, eased 0.1 percent, while Tokyo's Nikkei share average ended down 0.8 percent, just below a 23-month high.
MSCI's broad world equity index was down 0.15 percent but was still not far from an 18-month peak scaled when investors returned to the market after the immediate U.S. fiscal crisis was averted by a political deal in Washington.
Financial shares outperformed the broader market after the Basel Committee of banking supervisors agreed to give banks four more years and greater flexibility than previously envisaged to build protective cash buffers. That means they can use more of their reserves to lend and help economies grow.
The STOXX 600 European banking index was up by 1.5 percent at 172.58 points while the STOXX euro zone bank index gained 2.1 percent.
"This will remove major uncertainties for the banks and the financing of the economy," said Arnaud Poutier, co-head of IG Markets France. "It's positive for banking stocks, but also for the overall market."
Brent crude oil futures slipped 50 cents to $110.81 per barrel after rising 0.6 percent last week.
ECB LOOMS
Investors were turning their attention to the first major policy meetings of the year at the European Central Bank and Bank of England on Thursday. No rate moves are expected but new euro zone economic forecasts are due.
Some analysts expect the ECB to point to the prospect of easier rates early this year after the meeting, contrasting with signals from U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers that it may pursue less accommodative policies in future.
The Bank of Japan is also expected to take major steps to stimulate that country's economy later this month as the new government aims to end deflation and recession.
The possibility of less monetary stimulus in 2013 from the Fed and more from the BOJ sent the dollar to a two-and-a-half year peak against the yen last week. However, profit taking saw it pull back on Monday by 0.3 percent to 87.87 yen.
The euro eased 0.3 percent to $1.3035 but was trading above a three-week low of $1.2998 hit on Friday. Analysts predicted it would stay around these levels until the outcome of ECB meeting is known.
"If the ECB doesn't cut rates we could see a minor uptick in the euro," said John Hardy, FX strategist at SAXO Bank. "The bigger risk going forward, however, is if they hint at the possibility of more easing, which will weigh on the euro."
DEBT STEADY
In the European bond markets, investors scooped up German government bonds after their steep falls last week as expectations changed over the Fed's next move.
Ten-year German cash yields were 2.2 basis points lower on the day at 1.522 percent. Other euro zone bond yields were steady to slightly higher as traders awaited debt auctions by Spain and Italy later in the week.
U.S. Treasury 10-year notes were mostly steady at 1.90 percent after reaching 1.975 percent on Friday in a sell-off fuelled by the expectations of less easy monetary policy this year.
Further moves are likely to be limited due to sales of three-year notes on Tuesday, 10-year notes on Wednesday and 30-year bonds on Thursday.
Gold was off its lows of last week but in line with equities and oil had eased slightly as investors focused on the outlook for U.S. budget talks and the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing programme.
"The current discussion in the gold market is when the Fed would end quantitative easing," said Peter Fertig, analyst with Quantitative Commodity Research.
Spot gold was down 0.1 percent at $1,655 an ounce, though above Friday's $1,625.79, its lowest price since August.

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Futures slip after S&P hits pre-recession levels

 Stock futures are cooling off after the Standard & Poor's index reached levels last week not seen since the start of the Great Recession.
Dow Jones industrial futures are down 8 points to 13,338. The broader S&P futures have lost 0.80 points to 1,456.90. Nasdaq futures are down a point at 2,712.
Investors appear to be taking some money off the table with the earnings season kicking off Tuesday.
The S&P 500 is now 2 percent higher than it was on election day and on Friday closed at 1,466, the highest since December 2007.
On Monday, Bank of America said it would pay Fannie Mae $3.6 billion and buy back $6.8 billion in loans to settle mortgage claims from the housing meltdown.

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Wall Street set for higher open after jobs report

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street was set for a higher open on Friday after a key U.S. jobs report showed the pace of hiring by employers had eased sightly in December but gave signals of some momentum in the labor market's recovery since the 2007-09 recession.
Though the data showed lackluster economic growth was unable to make a dent in the still-high U.S. unemployment rate, it calmed fears about the possibility of the U.S. Federal Reserve ending its highly stimulative monetary policy.
Concerns about the endurance of the Fed's stimulus program prompted investors to pull back from the market Thursday after a two-day rally.
"When it comes to Fed policy, this report should keep policy steady. There was talk of a scaling back of (Quantitative Easing) yesterday, but this number is a snapshot and is basically where it was when the Fed decided to do more QE last month," said Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital markets in New York.
According to the Labor Department, payrolls outside the farming sector grew 155,000 last month, as expected and slightly below the level for November. Gains in employment were distributed broadly throughout the economy, from manufacturing and construction to health care.
Minutes from the Fed's December policy meeting, released Thursday, showed Fed officials were increasingly worried about the risks of asset purchases on financial markets, though they looked set to continue with the open-ended stimulus program for now.
Some policymakers thought asset buying should be slowed or stopped before the end of 2013 while others highlighted the need for further stimulus. The Fed's policy of easy credit has helped push the S&P 500 to a 13.4 percent gain in 2012. Ending that policy would remove an incentive for investors to purchase riskier assets like stocks.
S&P 500 futures added 3.4 points and were slightly higher than fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures added 15 points, while Nasdaq 100 futures added 4.25 points.
Pharmaceuticals maker Eli Lilly and Co. said on Friday it expects 2013 earnings to increase to $3.75 to $3.90 per share excluding items from $3.30 to $3.40 per share in 2012.
Walgreen is set to report December same-store sales, a day after several major U.S. retailers beat expectations of modest sales increases in December as shoppers wrapped up holiday buying.
Mosaic Co reported that its quarterly operating profit fell 30 percent as international distributors delayed buying potash and phosphate to avert the price risk associated with the fertilizer producer's negotiations with China and India.
Japan's Nikkei share average climbed nearly 3 percent to a 22-month high on its first trading day of 2013 on Friday, as a deal in Washington to avert fiscal disaster buoyed investor risk appetite and the weaker yen lifted exporters such as Toyota Motor Corp . Japan's markets were closed Thursday for a holiday.

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Stocks inch higher following jobs report

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are mostly edging higher on Wall Street in early trading after the U.S. government reported that hiring held up last month.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 11 points to 13,403 shortly after the opening bell Friday. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose two to 1,461 and the Nasdaq fell a point to 3,099.
The Labor Department said U.S. employers added 155,000 jobs in December. It also said hiring was stronger in November than first thought. The unemployment rate held steady at 7.8 percent.
Accuray plunged 23 percent to $5.21 after the radiation oncology equipment company reported weak sales and said it would cut 13 percent of its staff.
Yoga apparel maker Lululemon dropped 5 percent to $71.10 after Credit Suisse predicted slowing momentum and downgraded its stock.

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Sensex edges up to two-year high on oil, earnings

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The BSE Sensex edged higher on Friday to touch two-year high, posting its strongest weekly performance since the end of November, as oil companies such as ONGC rose on hopes a proposed change in the government's pricing formula would boost gas prices.
Software services exporters such as Tata Consultancy Services also rose on expectations upcoming October-December earnings results would beat expectations and that the sector would guide for an improved outlook in 2013.
Infosys will kick off earnings on January 11, at a time when results are gaining particular relevance given some analysts worry about potential complacency after strong gains in 2012 have continued into the new year.
India VIX <.nifvix>, also considered by some investors as a fear gauge, is just 2.5 percent away from its all-time lowest close.
"We have already seen advance tax numbers, so in the near term one has to see how the earnings season pans out," Kaushik Dani, fund manager at Peerless Mutual Fund, said.
"One has to remain stock specific on how the numbers shape up for the quarter," Dani said.
The benchmark BSE index rose 0.1 percent, or 19.30 points, to end at 19,784.08, marking a fourth consecutive session of gains.
The index rose 1.74 percent for the week, its strongest weekly performance since the end of November.
The broader NSE index rose 0.11 percent, or 6.65 points, to end at 6,016.15, closing above the psychologically important 6,000 level for a second day. It rose 1.8 percent for the week.
Shares in upstream oil and gas companies rallied on hopes that the pricing formula recommended by a government-appointed panel that looked into oil and gas exploration contracts would be approved by the government.
The proposed changes would sharply raise the prices of domestic natural gas, analysts said.
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation shares gained 1.8 percent, while Oil India rose 2 percent.
Reliance Industries Ltd rose 0.13 percent, gaining less than its peers after the market regulator rejected its request to settle a long-pending dispute over the 2007 sale of stock futures in a unit.
State-owned oil companies gained on expectations India could soon announce a potential gradual hike in diesel prices, after a government official last month was quoted in local media saying a proposal was being considered.
Among refiners, Indian Oil Corp rose 3.5 percent, Hindustan Petroleum Corp gained 5.3 percent and Bharat Petroleum Corp ended 2.12 percent higher.
Expectations of better-than-expected quarterly earnings lifted technology stocks.
Tata Consultancy Services Ltd rose 1.45 percent, while Wipro Ltd ended up 1.5 percent higher.
Infosys, which kicks off earnings on Friday, rose 0.5 percent. The company denied a newspaper report it was planning to fire up to 5,000 poorly performing workers was "wrong", although it encourages "chronic underperformers" to leave as part of its routine staff management.
IFCI shares gained 11.4 percent after the government restructured the board of the project finance provider according to a stock filing, sparking hopes of a turnaround in operations.
However, Tata Steel ended 1.9 percent lower while Jindal Steel and Power fell 1.8 percent on profit taking, after gaining on the back of a rise in international metal prices after the end of the US "fiscal cliff" issue.

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Fiscal-cliff deal no recipe for a robust economy

Housing is rebounding. Families are shrinking debts. Europe has avoided a financial crackup. And the fiscal cliff deal has removed the most urgent threat to the U.S. economy.
So why don't economists foresee stronger growth and hiring in 2013?
Part of the answer is what Congress' agreement did (raise Social Security taxes for most of us). And part is what it didn't do (prevent the likelihood of more growth-killing political standoffs).
By delaying painful decisions on spending cuts, the deal assures more confrontation and uncertainty, especially because Congress must reach agreement later this winter to raise the government's debt limit. Many businesses are likely to remain wary of expanding or hiring in the meantime.
One hopeful consensus: If all the budgetary uncertainty can be resolved within the next few months, economists expect growth to pick up in the second half of 2013.
"We are in a better place than we were a couple of days ago," Chad Moutray, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers, said a day after Congress sent President Barack Obama legislation to avoid sharp income tax increases and government spending cuts. But "we really haven't dealt with the debt ceiling or tax reform or entitlement spending."
Five full years after the Great Recession began, the U.S. economy is still struggling to accelerate. Many economists think it will grow a meager 2 percent or less this year, down from 2.2 percent in 2012. The unemployment rate remains a high 7.7 percent. Few expect it to drop much this year.
Yet in some ways, the economy has been building strength. Corporations have cut costs and have amassed a near-record $1.7 trillion in cash. Home sales and prices have been rising consistently, along with construction. Hiring gains have been modest but steady. Auto sales in 2012 were the best in five years. The just-ended holiday shopping season was decent.
Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist for the Economic Outlook Group, thinks the lack of finality in the budget fight is slowing an otherwise fundamentally sound economy.
"What a shame," Baumohl said in a research note Wednesday. "Companies are eager to ramp up capital investments and boost hiring. Households are prepared to unleash five years of pent-up demand."
The economy might be growing at a 3 percent annual rate if not for the threat of sudden and severe spending cuts and tax increases, along with the haziness surrounding the budget standoff, says Ethan Harris, co-director of global economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Still, Congress' deal delivered a walloping tax hike for most workers: the end of a two-year Social Security tax cut. The tax is rising back up to 6.2 percent from 4.2 percent. The increase will cost someone making $50,000 about $1,000 a year and a household with two high-paid workers up to $4,500.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, calculates that the higher Social Security tax will slow growth by 0.6 percentage point in 2013. The other tax increases — including higher taxes on household incomes above $450,000 a year — will slice just 0.15 percentage point from growth, Zandi says.
Congress' deal also postpones decisions on spending cuts for military and domestic programs, including Medicare and Social Security. In doing so, it sets up a much bigger showdown over raising the government's borrowing limit. Republicans will likely demand deep spending cuts as the price of raising the debt limit. A similar standoff in 2011 brought the government to the brink of default and led Standard & Poor's to yank its top AAA rating on long-term U.S. debt.
Here's how key parts of the economy are shaping up for 2013:
— JOBS
With further fights looming over taxes and spending, many companies aren't likely to step up hiring. Congress and the White House will likely start battling over raising the $16.4 trillion debt limit in February.
Many economists expect employers to add an average of 150,000 to 175,000 jobs a month in 2013, about the same pace as in 2011 and 2012. That level is too weak to quickly reduce unemployment.
The roughly 2 million jobs Zandi estimates employers will add this year would be slightly more than the 1.8 million likely added in 2012. Zandi thinks employers would add an additional 600,000 jobs this year if not for the measures agreed to in the fiscal cliff deal.
Federal Reserve policymakers have forecast that the unemployment rate will fall to 7.4 percent, at best, by year's end. Economists regard a "normal" rate as 6 percent or less.
— CONSUMER SPENDING
Consumer confidence fell in December as Americans began to fear the higher taxes threatened by the fiscal cliff. Confidence had reached a five-year high in November, fueled by slowly declining unemployment and a steady housing rebound. Consumer spending is the driving force of the economy.
But the deal to avoid the cliff won't necessarily ignite a burst of spending. Taxes will still rise for nearly 80 percent of working Americans because of the higher Social Security tax rate.
Since the recession officially ended in June 2009, pay has barely kept up with inflation. The Social Security tax increase will cut paychecks further. And with the job market likely to remain tight, few companies have much incentive to hand out raises.
Thanks to record-low interest rates, consumers have whittled their debts to about 113 percent of their after-tax income. That's the lowest share since mid-2003, according to Haver Analytics. And the delinquency rate for users of bank credit cards is at an 18-year low, the American Bankers Association reported Thursday.
Yet that hardly means people are ready to reverse course and ramp up credit-card purchases. Most new spending would have to come from higher incomes, says Ellen Zentner, senior economist at Nomura Securities.
"We don't see the mindset of, 'Let's run up the credit card again,'" she says.
— HOUSING
Economists are nearly unanimous about one thing: The housing market will keep improving.
That's partly because of a fact that's caught many by surprise: Five years after the housing bust left a glut of homes in many areas, the nation doesn't have enough houses. Only 149,000 new homes were for sale at the end of November, the government has reported. That's just above the 143,000 in August, the lowest total on records dating to 1963. And the supply of previously occupied homes for sale is at an 11-year low.
"We need to start building again," says Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight.
Sales of new homes in November reached their highest annual pace in 2½ years. They were 15 percent higher than a year earlier. And October marked a fifth straight month of year-over-year price increases in the 20 major cities covered by the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller national home price index.
Potential homebuyers "are more likely to buy, and banks are more likely to lend" when prices are rising, says James O'Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. "It feeds on itself."
Higher prices are also encouraging builders to begin work on more homes. They were on track last year to start construction of the most homes in four years.
Ultra-low mortgage rates have helped spur demand. The average rate on the U.S. 30-year fixed mortgage is 3.35 percent, barely above the 3.31 percent reached in November, the lowest on records dating to 1971.
Housing tends to have an outside impact on the economy. A housing recovery boosts construction jobs and encourages more spending on furniture and appliances. And higher home prices make people feel wealthier, which can also lead to more spending.
"When you have a housing recovery, it's nearly impossible for the U.S. economy to slip into recession," Zentner says.
— MANUFACTURING
Factories appear to be recovering slowly from a slump last fall. The Institute for Supply Management's index of manufacturing activity rose last month from November. And a measure of employment suggested that manufacturers stepped up hiring in December. Factories had cut jobs in three of the four months through November, according to government data.
Another encouraging sign: Americans are expected to buy more cars this year. That would help boost manufacturing output. Auto sales will likely rise nearly 7 percent in 2013 over last year to 15.3 million, according to the Polk research firm. Sales likely reached 14.5 million last year, the best since 2007. In 2009, sales were just 10.4 million, the fewest in more than 30 years.
And if Congress can raise the federal borrowing limit without a fight that damages confidence, companies might boost spending on computers, industrial machinery and other equipment in the second half of 2013, economists say. That would help keep factories busy.

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Auto industry posts best U.S. sales year since 2007

U.S. auto sales rose 9 percent in December, led by foreign manufacturers, capping off the best year for the industry since before the recession.
The year's sales were driven by a slowly recovering economy, more available credit and the need for consumers and businesses to replace aging cars and trucks.
General Motors Co posted December U.S. sales growth of 5 percent compared with the year-earlier month, Ford Motor Co increased sales 2 percent and Chrysler Group LLC's sales rose 10 percent.
Wall Street cheered the results, sending GM and Ford stock to their highest levels since July 2011. GM shares ended 2.4 percent higher at $29.82 and Ford shares were up 2 percent to end at $13.46 on Thursday.
Research and consulting firm Polk said it expects U.S. auto sales to hit 15.3 million vehicles in 2013. GM and Ford both predicted industry sales of more than 15 million vehicles, but Toyota Motor Corp offered a more modest forecast of 14.7 million vehicles.
For the year just ended, U.S. auto sales rose 13.5 percent to nearly 14.5 million new vehicles, the best performance since 2007, according to Reuters calculations.
In the decade prior to 2008 when the recession slowed the industry, U.S. auto sales averaged nearly 17 million vehicles a year.
While last month's auto sales showed little impact of jitters caused by the so-called fiscal cliff - which proved largely averted - automakers expressed worry over the fog of uncertainty still emanating from Washington.
The impact of a payroll tax increase that took effect at the start of the year and the upcoming congressional debate over raising the U.S. debt ceiling may keep some consumers out of the market in 2013, several automakers said.
"It would have been nice if all the open questions had been resolved in the 'fiscal cliff' discussion over the holiday, but clearly they weren't, and that does extend this period of uncertainty from a consumer point of view," Jonathan Browning, head of Volkswagen AG's American unit, told reporters on a conference call.
A 2 percentage-point payroll tax increase will take about $1,000 from the average household budget, said Ford economist Ellen Hughes-Cromwick.
"It is something that we're looking at very carefully, as it will crimp the consumer spending scene somewhat in the months ahead," said Hughes-Cromwick.
Jesse Toprak, analyst with TrueCar.com, said the hit to households would be about the same amount as a down payment on a new vehicle.
"The cheap financing and improved income will make up for that, but that's something we're going to have a keep an eye on," he said.
Hughes-Cromwick said the tax increases for the wealthiest Americans will not greatly affect auto sales, because they tend to purchase new vehicles even if taxes change.
Tom Libby, an analyst at Polk, said continued low interest rates along with an improved housing sector and new product offerings from major automakers will make 2013 a bullish year for the industry.
Detroit's automakers showed December U.S. sales gains of 5 percent, slightly better than analysts' expectations, but not enough to stave off market-share gains by Toyota and Honda Motor Co Ltd .
The two largest Japanese automakers in the U.S. market rebounded from poor showings in 2011 when their inventory was constrained after the Japan earthquake and tsunami.
Toyota reported a 9 percent U.S. sales increase for December, which met analysts' expectations. Honda's December sales rose 26 percent but fell short of analysts' expectations. Honda sales are up 24 percent on the year.
Toyota's 2012 U.S. sales rose about 27 percent, compared with gains of 3.7 percent for GM, 4.7 percent for Ford, and 21 percent for Chrysler.
U.S. MARKET SHARE
GM's U.S. market share is now at its lowest level since at least 1960, and probably at a low not seen since 1930, according to industry journal Ward's Auto.
GM and Ford lost market share in 2012, dented by competition from Toyota and Honda which recovered from 2011 earthquake-related setbacks.
GM's 2012 market share fell to 17.9 percent from 19.6 percent in 2011. Its market share was 23.5 percent in 2007, before the recession. Ford's 2012 market share fell to 15.5 percent from 16.8 percent in 2011.
"We're always concerned about market share - always," said Mark Reuss, GM chief in North America. "But we're not going to give it away like we did in the past and burn the residuals and the brand values in anticipation of the biggest product portfolio launch that we've had in history."
Reuss referred to the years before GM's 2009 bankruptcy and taxpayer bailout, when vehicle production outpaced demand and it layered on incentives to lower prices for consumers.
The F-Series pickup truck from Ford, the top-selling vehicle in North America for more than three decades, had its best sales month in December since August 2007.
The F-Series remained the best-selling vehicle in the United States, with annual sales of 645,316, followed again by the full-size Chevrolet Silverado pickup, at 418,312.
BMW WINS LUXURY CROWN
Most luxury brands had a good year. BMW for the second straight year edged German rival Mercedes-Benz for the U.S. sales crown, followed by Toyota's Lexus and Honda's Acura.
The two U.S. luxury brands both saw sales fall in 2012, with Cadillac down 1.7 percent and Lincoln off 4.1 percent.
Japanese models swept the next four places, with Toyota Camry leading the Honda Accord, Honda Civic and Nissan Altima. Chrysler's Ram pickup placed seventh, followed by Toyota Corolla, Ford Escape and Ford Focus.
Both GM and Ford went into the recession that began in late 2007 - and into 2008 when gasoline prices spiked - overladen with low-mileage big pickup trucks and SUVs.
GM said on Thursday that in 2012 it sold in the U.S. market more than 1 million vehicles that get at least 30 miles per gallon in highway driving. And Ford said that in the year it sold the most small cars since 2001.
Sales of high-profile hybrid and electric vehicles were a mixed bag in 2012. GM's Chevrolet Volt tripled sales to 23,461, but still fell well short of the company's original goal of 40,000 vehicles. Nissan's Leaf was virtually flat, at 9,819.
Toyota maintained its lead in the green-car category, with total Prius sales of 236,659, up 73 percent with the addition of three new Prius derivatives in the past year.
Chrysler easily beat analysts' expectations and had its 33rd consecutive month of year-on-year sales gains. Its annual sales rose 21 percent. Its market share in 2012 rose to 11.4 percent from 10.7 percent in 2011. Chrysler is majority-owned by Italian automaker Fiat SpA .
Sales for South Korea's Hyundai Motor Corp and Kia Motors Co rose 5 percent. Hyundai, the larger of the sister companies, reported full-year U.S. sales of 703,007 vehicles, a company record.
Volkswagen reported a monthly increase of 31.5 percent for its namesake brand and luxury brands Audi and Porsche and a 30 percent gain for the full year.
December sales fell 12 percent for Lincoln, Ford's luxury brand.
Aided heavily by consumer incentives that reduce the price of the vehicles, GM in December dramatically trimmed its inventory of full-size pickup trucks to 80 days of supply from 139 days at the end of November. Most automakers like to have about 80 days of supply of these pickup trucks.
For the overall industry, the pace of annual sales increases has been in the double digits since the market bottomed in 2009, when it hit the worst annual sales rate since World War Two, adjusting for population.

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Economy, year-end sales help auto industry in 2012

DETROIT (AP) — A steadily improving economy and strong December sales lifted the American auto industry to its best performance in five years in 2012, especially for Volkswagen and Japanese-brand vehicles, and experts say the next year should be even better.
Carmakers on Thursday announced their final figures, which totaled 14.5 million — 13 percent better than 2011.
More than three years after the federal government's $62 billion auto-industry bailout, Americans had plenty of incentive to buy new cars and trucks in the year just ended.
Unemployment eased. Home sales and prices rose. And the average age of a car topped 11 years in the U.S., a record that spurred people to trade in old vehicles. Banks made that easier by offering low interest rates and greater access to loans, even for buyers with lousy credit.
"The U.S. light vehicle sales market continues to be a bright spot in the tremulous global environment," said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting for LMC Automotive, a Detroit-area industry forecasting firm.
Sales were far better than the bleak days after the U.S. economy tanked and GM and Chrysler sought bankruptcy protection. Back then, sales fell to a 30-year low of 10.4 million, and they are still far short of the recent peak of around 17 million set in 2005.
The best part of 2012 came at the end, when special deals on pickup trucks and the usual round of sparkling holiday ads helped December sales jump 9 percent to more than 1.3 million, according to Autodata Corp. That translates to an annual rate of 15.4 million, making December the strongest month of the year.
Volkswagen led all major automakers with sales up a staggering 35 percent, led by the redesigned Passat midsize sedan. VW sold more than five times as many Passats last year as it did in 2011.
Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends for TrueCar, said VW has the right mix of value and attractive vehicles and called the company "the force to watch in the next several years in the U.S. market."
Toyota, which has recovered from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan that crimped its factories two years ago, saw sales jump 27 percent for 2012. December sales were up 9 percent. Unlike 2011, the company had plenty of new cars on dealer lots for most of last year.
Honda sales rose 24 percent for the year. Nissan and Infiniti sales were up nearly 10 percent as the Nissan brand topped 1 million in annual sales for the first time. Hyundai sales rose 9 percent for the year to just over 703,000, the Korean automaker's best year in the U.S.
Chrysler, the smallest of the Detroit carmakers, had the best year among U.S. companies. Its sales jumped 21 percent for the year and 10 percent in December. Demand was led by the Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV, Ram pickup and Chrysler 300 luxury sedan.
But full-year sales at Ford and General Motors lagged. Ford edged up 5 percent and GM rose only 3.7 percent for the year. For December, Ford was up 2 percent and GM up 5 percent.
GM executives said the company has the oldest model lineup in the industry, yet it still posted a sales increase and commanded high prices for cars and trucks. The company plans to refurbish 70 percent of its North American models in the next 18 months and expects to boost sales this year.
North American President Mark Reuss said the company won't give away cars and trucks with discounts like it has in the past, especially in the midst of its biggest product update ever.
"Give us 18 months and you're going to see the whole portfolio turned," Reuss said.
Even though the congressional deal to avoid the fiscal cliff deal raised tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, Ford said it doesn't see a huge impact on auto sales.
Its chief economist, Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, said only 2 percent of new-vehicle buyers have income in that upper tax bracket, and they tend to purchase even if there is a change in after-tax income.
She said Ford is more concerned about an increase in the payroll tax, which is scheduled to climb to 6.2 percent this year from 4.2 percent in 2011 and 2012. That amounts to a $1,000 to $1,500 tax increase per household, she said.
"We will look at that closely because it will crimp spending in the months ahead," she said.
December featured year-end deals on GM's big pickup trucks. The company offered discounts up to $9,000 to help clear growing inventory, and it worked. GM cut its full-size pickup supply by more than 20,000 in December to about 222,000.
Overall, though, analysts said the industry eased up on promotions such as rebates and low-interest financing. Car and truck buyers paid an average of $31,228 per vehicle last month, up 1.8 percent from December 2011.
The Polk auto research firm predicted even stronger U.S. sales for 2013, forecasting 15.3 million vehicle sales as the economy continues to improve. Polk, based in Southfield, Mich., expects 43 new models to be introduced, up 50 percent from last year. New models usually boost sales.
The firm also predicts a rebound in sales of large pickups and midsize cars. All eight of the top manufacturers are introducing new vehicles, and that should bring competition and lower prices in those segments, according to Tom Libby, lead North American analyst for Polk.
But the firm's optimistic forecasts hinge on Washington reaching an agreement on government debt limits and spending cuts.

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Fracking can be done safely in New York state: dept report

The natural gas drilling process known as fracking would not be a danger to public health in New York state so long as proper safeguards were put into place, according to a health department report that environmentalists fear could help lift a moratorium on the controversial technique.
Governor Andrew Cuomo is weighing the economic benefits of hydraulic fracturing - commonly known as fracking - against the environmental risks from a technology that could unlock a vast domestic energy supply but also one that environmentalists say pollutes groundwater and the air.
Potential hazards could be avoided by implementing precautions the state has identified, according to a February 2012 preliminary assessment from the New York State Department of Health that became widely reported in the media on Thursday.
"Significant adverse impacts on human health are not expected from routine HVHF," or high volume hydraulic fracturing, the document concluded.
Natural gas drilling in New York state could create $11.4 billion in economic output and raise $1.4 billion in state and local tax revenue, according to a July 2011 report from the Manhattan Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank.
Fracking is the process of releasing natural gas and oil from rock deposits deep underground by fracturing shale formations with chemical-laced water and sand.
The release of the document came as Cuomo's government continued to deliberate whether to overturn a 4-year-old moratorium on fracking originally put in place to assess the effects of the drilling process.
The Department of Environmental Conservation is the lead agency studying fracking, with contributions from other departments such as health.
In late November, the Department of Environmental Conservation was granted a 90-day extension to its original deadline for completing a draft of fracking regulations in order for its environmental impact study to be reviewed by the state health commissioner and outside health experts.
Since the preliminary assessment was put together nearly a year ago, was incomplete, and did not reflect the input of these experts, it does not reflect the final policy of the Department of Environmental Conservation, spokeswoman Emily DeSantis said in an email.
"I sincerely hope that this is not where the administration is going with the health review," said Katherine Nadeau of Environmental Advocates, a group concerned over the state's plans for fracking.
"It is nothing more than a justification for not doing a health review and a defense for the plans and proposals they've already put out there," said Nadeau, who had reviewed the document.
The Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York, which represents oil and gas producers in the state, called on the Cuomo administration to lift the moratorium because the experience of other states has shown that fracking could be done in a way that protects the environment and public health.
"All ongoing environmental reviews, including New York's health assessment, will make similar conclusions," Brad Gill, the group's executive director, said in an emailed statement.
The precautions the health department document proposed for the state to put into place were of varying specificity. For example, the transport of drilling water that flows back out of wells after fracking should be subject to similar requirements to the treatment of medical waste.

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IMF's economist: budget cuts may hurt growth less now

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Belt-tightening in advanced economies may not be as harmful to growth now as it was during the height of the financial crisis, but governments should still be careful about drastic cuts, an International Monetary Fund research paper found on Thursday.
The IMF came under heavy criticism in October when it conceded that austerity programs it recommended during the global economic crisis were more costly than expected, causing economic damage that was as much as triple the amount forecast.
In a follow-up paper by the IMF's chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, and his colleague, Daniel Leigh, stood by their initial conclusions but said the harshest impact of those programs may be fading as economies start to recover.
The paper in October fueled critics of steep budget cuts in debt-burdened European economies, and prompted the IMF to soften its own recommendations for austerity in the euro zone crisis.
It said that now it believed forcing Greece and other debt-burdened countries to reduce their deficits too quickly would be counterproductive.
"For example, in Portugal, we have relaxed fiscal deficit targets," said Blanchard, the IMF chief economist.
But Germany said at the time that back-tracking on debt-reduction goals would only hurt market confidence.
Some economists also questioned the methodology the IMF had used in its initial research, saying the findings may have been exaggerated, or only applied to certain countries or times.
In the follow-up paper on Thursday, Blanchard and Leight said their research held-up for most advanced economies during the height of the financial crisis in 2009-10. While their views do not represent those of the Fund, the chief economist has a heavy hand in shaping the IMF's economic thinking.
"Forecasters have underestimated fiscal multipliers, that is, the short-term effects of government spending cuts or tax hikes on economic activity," the paper wrote.
The paper found that every dollar of deficit reduction subtracted "substantially" more than a dollar from economic growth, as much at $1.70. Economists had previously estimated that a dollar in government cuts would drain only 50 cents from the economy.
But during the past two years, the negative effect of government cuts on growth may have shrunk as the economy improved and people and businesses were able to borrow more money, making government spending less crucial, the researchers found.
"A decline in actual multipliers ... could reflect an easing of credit constraints faced by firms and households, and less economic slack in a number of economies relative to 2009-10," the paper said.
Blanchard and Leigh said the effect of government spending on the economy could vary depending on the country and the state of the economy. They cautioned that governments should not necessarily delay austerity, but should take into account its negative impact on growth.

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China commentaries demand U.S. responsibility on "fiscal cliff"

 China's official Xinhua news agency demanded on Tuesday that the United States live up to its global economic responsibilities, put political infighting aside and sort out the "fiscal cliff" mess.
"Being the world's only superpower and the issuer of the dominant global reserve currency, the United States has a unique role and an unshirkable duty to help cure the ailing global economy," one of its English-language commentaries said.
"In today's economically interconnected and interdependent world, it is more of a benefit than of a burden that Washington honors its global responsibility," the state-run agency added.
"Should Washington fail to pull itself from the escarpment, the repercussions would throw the whole world into a cold winter of stagnant growth and laggard recovery."
A second commentary said the fiscal cliff debacle was a clear example of how poorly the U.S. political system worked.
"These days, both Democrats and Republicans seem more intent on inflicting damage on their political adversaries than working out a better future for their country," it said.
"Americans may be proud of their mature democracy, but the political gridlock in Washington really looks ugly from an outsider's view."
While such commentaries are not policy statements as such, they can be read as a reflection of government thinking.
The United States was on track to tumble over the fiscal cliff at midnight on Monday, at least for a day, as lawmakers held back from supporting an eleventh-hour plan from Senate leaders to avert severe tax increases and spending cuts.
China sits on the world's biggest pile of foreign exchange reserves worth $3.3 trillion and as much as 70 percent of the holdings are still invested in U.S. dollar assets, including U.S. Treasuries, according to analysts.
China is on course to end 2012 with the slowest full year of growth since 1999 and while the 7.7 percent rate forecast in a benchmark Reuters poll is way above the world's other major economies, it is far below the roughly 10 percent annual growth seen for most of the last 30 years.

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Analysis: Economy would dodge bullet for now under fiscal deal

 A deal worked out by Senate leaders to avoid the "fiscal cliff" was far from any "grand bargain" of deficit reduction measures.
But if approved by the House of Representatives, it could help the country steer clear of recession, although enough austerity would remain in place to likely keep the economy growing at a lackluster pace.
The Senate approved a last-minute deal early Tuesday morning to scale back $600 billion in scheduled tax hikes and government spending cuts that economists widely agree would tip the economy into recession.
The deal would hike taxes permanently for household incomes over $450,000 a year, but keep existing lower rates in force for everyone else.
It would make permanent the alternative minimum tax "patch" that was set to expire, protecting middle-income Americans from being taxed as if they were rich.
Scheduled cuts in defense and non-defense spending were simply postponed for two months.
Economists said that if the emerging package were to become law, it would represent at least a temporary reprieve for the economy. "This keeps us out of recession for now," said Menzie Chinn, an economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The contours of the deal suggest that roughly one-third of the scheduled fiscal tightening could still take place, said Brett Ryan, an economist at Deutsche Bank in New York.
That is in line with what many financial firms on Wall Street and around the world have been expecting, suggesting forecasts for economic growth of around 1.9 percent for 2013 would likely hold.
At midnight Monday, low tax rates enacted under then-President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003 expired. If the House agrees with the Senate - and there remained considerable doubt on that score - the new rates would be extended retroactively.
Otherwise, together with other planned tax hikes, the average household would pay an estimated $3,500 more in taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank. Budget experts expect the economy would take a hit as families cut back on spending.
Provisions in the Senate bill would avoid scheduled cuts to jobless benefits and to payments to doctors under a federal health insurance program.
AUSTERITY'S BITE
Like the consensus of economists from Wall Street and beyond, Deutsche Bank has been forecasting enough fiscal drag to hold back growth to roughly 1.9 percent in 2013. Ryan said the details of the deal appeared to support that forecast.
That would be much better than the 0.5 percent contraction predicted by the Congressional Budget Office if the entirety of the fiscal cliff took hold, but it would fall short of what is needed to quickly heal the labor market, which is still smarting from the 2007-09 recession.
"We continue to anticipate a significant economic slowdown at the start of the year in response to fiscal drag and a contentious fiscal debate," economists at Nomura said in a research note.
In particular, analysts say financial markets are likely to remain on tenterhooks until Congress raises the nation's $16.4 trillion debt ceiling, which the U.S. Treasury confirmed had been reached on Monday.
While the Bush tax cuts would be made permanent for many Americans under the budget deal, a two-year-long payroll tax holiday enacted to give the economy an extra boost would expire. The Tax Policy Center estimates this could push the average household tax bill up by about $700 next year.
The suspension of spending cuts sets up a smaller fiscal cliff later in the year which still could be enough to send the economy into recession, said Chinn.
He warned that ongoing worries about the possibility of recession could keep businesses from investing, which would hinder economic growth.
"You retain the uncertainty," Chinn said.

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Senate approves "fiscal cliff" deal, crisis eased

 The Senate moved the U.S. economy back from the edge of a "fiscal cliff" on Tuesday, voting to avoid imminent tax hikes and spending cuts in a bipartisan deal that could still face stiff challenges in the House of Representatives.
In a rare New Year's session at around 2 a.m. EST (0700 GMT), senators voted 89-8 to raise some taxes on the wealthy while making permanent low tax rates on the middle class that have been in place for a decade.
But the measure did little to rein in huge annual budget deficits that have helped push the U.S. debt to $16.4 trillion.
The agreement came too late for Congress to meet its own deadline of New Year's Eve for passing laws to halt $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts which strictly speaking came into force on Tuesday.
But with the New Year's Day holiday, there was no real world impact and Congress still had time to draw up legislation, approve it and backdate it to avoid the harsh fiscal measures.
That will need the backing of the House where many of the Republicans who control the chamber complain that President Barack Obama has shown little interest in cutting government spending and is too concerned with raising taxes.
All eyes are now on the House which is to hold a session on Tuesday starting at noon (1700 GMT).
Obama called for the House to act quickly and follow the Senate's lead.
"While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay," he said in a statement.
"There's more work to do to reduce our deficits, and I'm willing to do it. But tonight's agreement ensures that, going forward, we will continue to reduce the deficit through a combination of new spending cuts and new revenues from the wealthiest Americans," Obama said.
Members were thankful that financial markets were closed, giving them a second chance to return to try to head off the fiscal cliff.
But if lawmakers cannot pass legislation in the coming days, markets are likely to turn sour. The U.S. economy, still recovering from the 2008/2009 downturn, could stall again if Congress fails to fix the budget mess.
"If we do nothing, the threat of a recession is very real. Passing this agreement does not mean negotiations halt, far from it. We can all agree there is more work to be done," Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, told the Senate floor.
A new, informal deadline for Congress to legislate is now Wednesday when the current body expires and it is replaced by a new Congress chosen at last November's election.
The Senate bill, worked out after long negotiations on New Year's Eve between Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, also postpones for two months a $109 billion "sequester" of sweeping spending cuts on military and domestic programs.
It extends unemployment insurance to 2 million people for a year and makes permanent the alternative minimum tax "patch" that was set to expire, protecting middle-income Americans from being taxed as if they were rich.
'IMPERFECT SOLUTION'
The tax hikes do not sit easy with Republicans but conservative senators held their noses and voted to raise rates for the rich because not to do so would have meant increases for almost all working Americans.
"It took an imperfect solution to prevent our constituents from a very real financial pain, but in my view, it was worth the effort," McConnell said.
House Speaker John Boehner - the top Republican in Congress - said the House would consider the Senate deal. But he left open the possibility of the House amending the Senate bill, which would spark another round of legislating.
"The House will honor its commitment to consider the Senate agreement if it is passed. Decisions about whether the House will seek to accept or promptly amend the measure will not be made until House members ... have been able to review the legislation," Boehner and other House Republican leaders said in a statement.
Boehner has struggled for two years to get control over a group of several dozen Tea Party fiscal conservatives in his caucus who strongly oppose tax increases and demand that he force Obama to make savings in the Medicare and Social Security healthcare and retirement programs.
A campaign-style event held by Obama in the White House as negotiations with Senate leaders were taking place on Monday may have made it more difficult for Republicans to back the deal. In remarks to a group of supporters that resembled a victory lap, the president noted that his rivals were coming around to his way of seeing things.
"Keep in mind that just last month Republicans in Congress said they would never agree to raise tax rates on the wealthiest Americans. Obviously, the agreement that's currently being discussed would raise those rates and raise them permanently," he said to applause before the Senate deal was sealed.
Obama's words and tone annoyed Republican lawmakers who seemed to feel that the Democrat was gloating.
"That's not the way presidents should lead," said Republican Senator John McCain, Obama's rival in the 2008 election.
A deal with the House on Tuesday, while uncertain, would not mark the end of congressional budget fights. The "sequester" spending cuts will come up again in February as will the contentious "debt ceiling," which caps how much debt the federal government can hold.
Republicans may see those two issues as their best chance to try to rein in government spending and clip Obama's wings at the start of his second term.

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Political brinksmanship still threatens US economy

Even if U.S. lawmakers prevent the worst of the so-called fiscal cliff, the brinksmanship in Washington over taxes and spending is likely to continue damaging the fragile economy well into 2013.
A months-long political standoff over fiscal policy has already taken its toll, adding uncertainty that has discouraged consumers from spending and businesses from hiring and investing.
The squabbling seems sure to persist even if the House of Representatives goes along with a partial fix passed by the Senate in the early hours of Jan. 1. Under that plan, taxes will rise on individual incomes over $400,000 and household incomes over $450,000 and on the portion of estates that exceeds $5 million. The House is expected to vote Tuesday or Wednesday.
But lawmakers appear to have postponed tough decisions on government spending, giving themselves a reprieve from cuts that were scheduled to begin taking effect automatically Jan. 1. That just sets the stage for more hard-bargaining later.
And another standoff is likely to arrive as early as February when Congress will need to raise the $16.4 trillion federal borrowing limit so the government can keep paying its bills. House Republicans probably won't agree to raise the debt limit without offsetting spending cuts that Democrats are sure to resist.
"Even if they cut some small deal, the process and what is left undone still means there's a lot of uncertainty," says Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group.
After Jan. 1, asks Ethan Harris, co-head of global economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, "what induces the two sides to stop fighting and start compromising? ... We're kind of in the first act of a three-act play," Harris says. "One of the key messages from the cliff is that this stuff just doesn't get resolved quickly."
The fiscal cliff itself was created to force Democrats and Republicans to compromise.
To end a 2011 standoff over raising the federal debt limit, they agreed to a Jan. 1, 2013 deadline to reach a deal over taxes and spending. If they didn't, more than $500 billion in 2013 tax increases would begin to take effect, along with $109 billion in cuts from the military and domestic spending programs. The sharp tax hikes and spending cut would threaten to send the economy over the cliff and back into recession.
But negotiations to avert catastrophe have highlighted once again how far apart the two parties are on taxes (Republicans don't want to raise them) and spending (Democrats are reluctant to cut government programs).
"We're learning about how deep the impasse is," Harris says. "Both sides have decided that they were willing to go to the last minute."
Political gridlock has been rattling financial markets and shaking consumer and business confidence the past two years.
After a fight over raising the debt limit last year, the credit rating agency Standard & Poor's yanked the U.S. government's blue-chip AAA bond rating because it feared that America's dysfunctional political system couldn't deliver a credible plan to reduce the federal government's debt. S&P cited an overabundance of "political brinksmanship" and warned that "the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge."
The Dow Jones industrials dropped 635 points in panicked selling the first day of trading after the S&P announcement.
Harris contrasted the latest budget brawls with previous budget agreements in the 1980s and 1990s. Those deals generally included deficit cuts that were spread out over time and were sometimes bipartisan.
That's better for business and consumer confidence than the repeated partisan standoffs and threats of sudden tax hikes and spending cuts that Congress now engages in.
"The process matters almost as much as what they actually do," Harris says.
Outside Washington, the economy has been getting some good news. Europe's financial crisis appears to have eased, reducing the threat of a renewed financial crisis. And the U.S. real estate market finally appears to be recovering from the housing bust.
But the old worries have been replaced by new ones about political gridlock, says Joseph LaVorgna, an economist at Deutsche Bank.
The partisan divide has left businesses and consumers wondering what's going to happen to their taxes and to federal contracts.
Companies have plenty of cash. But they reduced spending on industrial equipment, computers and software from July to September, the first quarterly drop since mid-2009 when the economy was still in recession. And hiring has been stuck at a modest level of about 150,000 new jobs per month this year.
"What we see is fear," says Darin Harris, chief operating for Primrose Schools, an Atlanta company with 250 franchised preschools in 17 states. He says franchise owners have been reluctant to invest in a second or third school until they know what tax rates are going to be and where government spending is headed. "All those things make our small business owners reluctant to reinvest."
Consumer confidence fell in December for the second straight month, according to a survey by the Conference Board, which blamed the drop on worries about the fiscal cliff. The uncertainty is also believed to have dinged holiday shopping, which grew at the slowest pace this year since 2008.
"Every kind of brinksmanship moment is a reminder to people to not trust the economy," Harris says.

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US may skirt 'fiscal cliff' but faces higher taxes

A last-ditch tax deal in the Senate might let the U.S. economy escape the worst of the so-called fiscal cliff and avoid going back into recession. But even if the House goes along, the tax increases likely coming in 2013 will dent economic growth anyway.
In the early hours of the new year, the Senate voted to end a long stalemate and raise taxes on upper-income households, extend long-term unemployment benefits and postpone decisions over government spending cuts, officials said. But any deal needs approval from the House.
About $536 billion in 2013 tax increases were scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, along with $109 billion in cuts from military and domestic-spending programs, if Democrats and Republicans could not reach agreement.
Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo, said he expects budget policy, including the higher taxes in the Senate plan, to shave 0.8 percentage points off economic growth in 2013. The economy doesn't have much growth to give. Vitner predicts it will grow just 1.5 percent in 2013, down from 2.2 percent in 2012.
The biggest hit to the economy is expected to come from the end of a two-year Social Security tax cut. The so-called payroll tax is scheduled to bounce back up to 6.2 percent from 4.2 percent in 2011 and 2012, amounting to a $1,000 tax increase for someone earning $50,000 a year.
"Even with this deal, fiscal policy will still be a net drag on economic growth," Vitner said. "The expiration of the payroll tax holiday will reduce after-tax income for all workers and hit lower to middle income families the hardest."
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, calculates that the higher payroll tax will reduce economic growth by 0.6 percentage points in 2013. The other possible tax increases — including higher taxes on household incomes above $450,000 a year — will slice just 0.15 percentage points off annual growth, Zandi says.

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Home prices rose in ninth straight month: S&P

Single-family home prices rose in October for nine months in a row, reinforcing the view the domestic real estate market is improving and should bolster the economy in 2013, a closely watched survey showed on Wednesday.
The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas gained 0.7 percent in October on a seasonally adjusted basis, stronger than the 0.5 percent rise forecast by economists polled by Reuters.
"Looking over this report, and considering other data on housing starts and sales, it is clear that the housing recovery is gathering strength," David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor's, said in a statement.
While record low mortgage rates and modest job growth should keep the housing recovery on track, analysts cautioned home prices face downward pressure from a likely pickup in the sales of foreclosed and distressed properties and reduced buying investors and speculators.
Prices in the 20 cities rose 4.3 percent year over year, beating expectations for a rise of 4.0 percent.
Las Vegas posted the biggest monthly rise on a seasonally adjusted basis at 2.4 percent, followed by a 1.7 percent increase in San Diego, the latest Case-Shiller data showed.
"Higher year-over-year price gains plus strong performances in the Southwest and California, regions that suffered during the housing bust, confirm that housing is now contributing to the economy," Blitzer said.
Housing contributed 10 percent to the overall U.S. economic growth in the third quarter, while the sector represented less than 3 percent of gross domestic product, he said.
Last week, the government said U.S. GDP expanded at a stronger-than-expected 3.1 percent annualized pace in the third quarter.
Excluding seasonal factors, however, home prices in 12 of the 20 cities fell in October from September as home values tend to decline in fall and winter, Blitzer said.
Chicago experienced the largest non-seasonally adjusted decline at 1.5 percent, followed by a 1.4 percent fall in Boston.

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