Business news for Mon, 24 Dec 2007 & with word drop. 7 news.

Shares of Sunnyvale-based Pharmacyclics plunged more than 26 percent Monday - the fourth biggest drop in its history - after federal regulators refused to approve its drug Xcytrin to treat patients whose lung cancer has spread to their brain.

UK house prices fell the most in three years in December and the threat of more declines may cause the property market to seize up in 2008, Hometrack Ltd said. The average cost of a home in England and Wales slipped for a third month, dropping 0.3 percent to 175,200 pounds ($347,877), the London-based research group said yesterday. The number of property transactions will fall 17 percent and prices will rise just one percent next year, Hometrack forecast. Bank of England policy makers said this month that a drop in house prices seemed "more pronounced" than expected as they cut their benchmark interest rate for the first time in two years. Record debt, higher mortgage costs and the property market's worst performance since 1995 have discouraged homebuyers. "The second half of the year has seen a major reversal in confidence," Richard Donnell, director of research at Hometrack, said in a statement. "Just as the financial markets have faced a liquidity

Treasury prices fell Monday as investors concentrated on opportunities in the stock market, with many players absent ahead of the Christmas holiday.

Analysts have watched this retail season nervously, concerned that the housing bust and subsequent credit crunch would prompt a drop in consumer spending.

Mesirow Financial Holdings Inc.'s turnaround division may need a dose of its own medicine. The business, which provides consulting services to troubled companies, cut almost a quarter of its staff in July after a drop in bankruptcy filings cut into profit. Despite bonuses offered to the 90 who ...

RETAILERS are facing their bleakest Christmas trade in years with fewer shoppers coming through the doors and predictions of lower spending.

The sharp decline of the U.S. dollar since 2000 is affecting a broad swath of the world's population, with its drop on global markets being blamed at least in part for misfortunes as diverse as labor strikes in the Middle East, lost jobs in Europe and the end of an era of globe-trotting rich...