Business news for Mon, 24 Dec 2007 & with words pre-christmas+shortened. 3 news.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Stock market futures help broadly steady ahead of a shortened Christmas Eve trading session Monday, with Alcoa Inc. among the stocks in focus after it agreed to sell its packaging and consumer businesses.

Ahead of a shortened pre-Christmas trading session, global signals are mixed for North American stock markets while the Canadian dollar has climbed above 101 cents US.

Asian stocks started the week on an upbeat note with Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 tilting higher in a shortened pre-Christmas session as investors bought resource shares after metals prices firmed Friday. In South Korean shares also were higher, led by gains for Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering.