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US stock market daily report (January 11, 2013, Friday)

Contributed by Millennium Traders

On Friday, executives from videogame firms are reportedly meeting with Vice President Joe Biden in the latest round of high-level meetings ahead of what is expected to be a strong push from the Obama Administration to enact new gun-control-related measures. Videogame firms have come in the cross-hairs of the White House and other D.C. lawmakers who are looking at a wide array of options in the wake of last month’s tragic mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, as well as other shootings carried out by troubled young people with a reported high consumption rate of violent games. Including the gun industry, many parties have pointed fingers at violent shoot-em-up games as a culprit in a “culture of violence” that needs to be addressed.

The U.S. Treasury Department is currently using emergency measures to avoid hitting the debt ceiling, but has only until mid-February until it exhausts its borrowing authority. On Friday, Treasury said the U.S. government ran a budget deficit of $260 million in December for its best showing for the final month in five years. The U.S. ran two monthly surpluses in the last fiscal year in which it had a trade gap of $1.09 trillion. For the fiscal year to date, the deficit of $292 billion is 9% lower than in the first three months of the prior fiscal year. In December, the U.S. government took in $269.5 billion, an increase of nearly 12% compared to December 2011. A 15% increase in individual withheld taxes helped contribute to the higher monthly receipts. Thanks to lower outlays for defense, Medicare and other programs, the U.S. government spent $269.7 billion, 17% less than in the year-ago period.

New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley reported that the Big Apple is facing a flu epidemic this winter as cases increase in the city's hospitals. "It's a bad year," Farley said. This season, flu-related cases shot up to 5% for emergency room visits, more than double last year's rate of 2%. The flu this year - Type A-H3N2 strain is similar to another bad flu year 2004, per Farley. New York is part of a larger U.S. trend of a seriously difficult flu season.

The U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday that prices paid for goods imported into the U.S. during December declined 0.1%, with lower prices for both fuel and nonfuel imports. Labor Department revised November's decline in import prices to 0.8% from prior estimate of a drop by 0.9%. In December import prices for fuel declined 0.1% and the price of U.S.-made goods exported to other nations declined by the same amount. Overall for 2012, import prices - led lower by fuel imports - fell 1.5% for the lowest change since 2008. Export prices rose 1.1% - also striking the lowest change since 2008.

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce Friday, during November, the U.S. trade deficit widened to $48.7 billion or15.8%, striking the largest deficit since April. U.S. imports rose 3.8% to $231.3 billion in November, striking the highest level seen since April. U.S. exports increased $182.6 billion by 1%. U.S. trade deficits widened with Canada and the European Union, but narrowed with China and the oil-producing OPEC nations, on an unadjusted basis.