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Hong Kong shares ended a record-setting year on a high note on Monday as investors chased blue-chip bargains in the shortened final trading session of 2007.

Stocks continued to decline Monday, halfway through the last trading day of the year, as investors dress their portfolios for the year's end.

FT.com - US stocks pared earlier losses but remained in negative territory in mid-morning trade on Monday, the last trading day of the year, as investors digested fresh data on the housing market.

Stocks looked poised for a slightly higher on the last trading day of the year as investors awaited the latest reading on the housing market.

European stocks slippedin morning activity, as a half-day of trade before the New Year's holiday kept many investors away.

The dollar remained under pressure against its major trading partners following weak housing data on Friday which which added to investors' fears that the American economy may sink into recession

Hong Kong shares ended a record-setting year on a high note on Monday as investors chased blue-chip bargains in the shortened final trading session of 2007.

THE share market remained flat at noon, on thin trading volume, as investors turned their attention to New Year celebrations.

THE Shanghai Futures Exchange, one of China's major futures trading venues, will start gold futures trading on January 9, the exchange said yesterday. But the contract size will be larger than originally expected in order to discourage individual investors. The contract size will be set at 1,000 grams. In an inquiry that the SFE distributed earlier this month, the contract size was listed at 300 gm. An official with the Exchange said the contract size was decided based on surveys. It is large enough to discourage those individual investors who lacked the ability to take risks, while also being useful to institutions. "We started gold futures trading to provide channels for gold producers and individual investors to hedge against price fluctuations," said the official. The China Securities Regulatory Commission said in a statement on Friday that it had approved the gold futures. The launch of gold futures would add to the hedging options for gold producers

An as-yet unnamed electronic exchange termed market solution to possible Chicago monopoly First he reviewed past efforts to break the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade's lock on futures trading, then Paul Saltzman borrowed from an old recipe: He enlisted many of the world's premiere financial institutions as investors in a new electronic exchange, finalizing the deal shortly before many of the players left for holiday vacations.

AP - Stocks rebounded in early trading Friday as investors awaited data on home sales and manufacturing to help determine how Wall Street will cap a fractious year.

Stocks soared in early trading Friday as investors awaited data on home sales and manufacturing to help determine how Wall Street will cap a fractious year.

U.S. stocks moved forward at the start of trading Friday as investors cheered a report that several major banks could sell assets.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European shares opened lower on the last full trading day of 2007 for many investors after a downbeat session on Wall Street as the assassination of Pakistan's opposition leader sparked worries about political stability in the region. Technology firms such as Alcatel-Lucent and autos such as tire maker Continental , down 1.2%, were among lead decliners. The U.K. FTSE 100 index dipped 0.3% at 6,481.40, the German DAX 30 index lost 0.5% at 8,001.62 and the French CAC-40 index moved down 0.4% at 5,603.56.

Goldman Sachs took the knife to its Wall Street rivals yesterday, predicting that the credit crunch would force Citigroup to slash its dividend by 40 per cent. At the same time it emerged that Merrill Lynch was preparing to cut 1,600 jobs from its trading desks. William Tanona, a leading Goldman Sachs analyst, said that Citigroup, the world’s largest bank, would have to cut its payout to shareholders to preserve its capital position and write off $18 billion ($£9 billion) of assets in the fourth quarter, compared with earlier estimates of $11 billion. Goldman said that Citigroup would need fresh capital of between $5 billion and $10 billion in addition to a recent $7.5 billion commitment from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Under that deal, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund is protected from a possible dividend cut, as it bought Citigroup bonds convertible into stock. The bonds, which will vest into a 5 per cent shareholding on conversion, pay an annual coupon of 11 per cent, compared with the existing dividend yield for shareholders of 7.3 per cent. Citigroup$’s largest shareholders include Capital Research & Management, with 4.6 per cent, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who controls 3.97 per cent, and Barclays Global Investors, with 3.76 per cent. Mr Tanona said that he had raised his loss estimates for Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan and forecast that, combined with Citigroup, the three will have chalked up $33.6 billion of writedowns in the fourth quarter. Goldman said it now forecast that Merrill and JPMorgan would record increased writedowns of $11.5 billion and $3.4 billion respectively $– up from $6 billion and $1.7 billion. Most of the writedowns are linked to the banks$’ exposure to collateralised debt obligations, special debt instruments that were invested in risky assets, such as US sub-prime mortgages. Mr Tanona said: “We still believe it will be a couple of quarters before the current credit crisis is fully digested by the markets.”

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Swiss bank UBS said Thursday that it will ask shareholders to approve its plan to raise capital at a meeting scheduled for Feb. 27. UBS said earlier in December that two strategic investors -- one of which is the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation -- intend to subscribe for 13 billion Swiss francs of mandatory convertible notes. The subscription is intended to strengthen the firm's capital base. Shares in UBS rose 2.1% in Swiss trading.

Investors say the real test for the first share sale of a state bank in communist-ruled Vietnam will come when the shares start trading on the market

Stocks finished largely flat Wednesday as investors returned from the Christmas holiday to news of weaker-than-expected retail sales. A jump in oil...

U.S. stocks slipped at the start of trading Wednesday as investors considered a record drop in monthly housing prices and indications of weak holiday retail sales.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Technology stocks put in a mixed early trading performance Wednesday, as investors came back following the Christmas holiday. Decliners included Apple Inc. , Hewlett-Packard Co. , Microsoft Corp. and Dell Inc. . The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index fell 11 points to 2,702, while the Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index and the Philaldelphia Semiconductor Index also retreated.