Business news for Mon, 31 Dec 2007 & with word jump. 5 news.

J ack Kellogg has a big jump on his New Year's resolutions. After about 30 years of selling hats, Kellogg noticed a troubling trend at his Hatman Jack's Wichita Hat Works in Delano. Most of his customers -- 65 percent of whom live in Wichita -- were skewing older. "It had me a little nervous," Kellogg says. So he started thinking that he'd like to expand to custom-designing hats for a couple of new groups of people: musicians doing the "soul, funk, hip-hop thing" and classic-music industry types. The first took care of itself recently when he got a call from a Wisconsin woman who helps outfit Prince and his entourage for concerts and music videos. The woman's sister lives in Wichita and recommended Kellogg's hats for a video being shot in Miami.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Energy stocks drifted slightly lower at the open Monday, the final session of 2007, amid sharply lower volume. Early action saw shares of Delta Petroleum Corp. jump as much as 24% to $19.30 a share after Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. announced it was taking a 35% stake in the company at $19 a share. But the news failed to spur gains elsewhere in the group. The Amex Oil Index was off 0.2% at 1,574 points, the Philadelphia Oil Service Index was down 1% at 303, and the Amex Natural Gas Index was essentially unchanged at 580 points.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- The Financial Services Authority is probing a jump in the share price of U.K. waste services group Biffa ahead of an announcement in November that it had received a 1.2 billion pound ($2.4 billion) takeover bid, according to a report in the Times (of London) newspaper. The report said the FSA has written to various parties involved in the talks to ask what they knew about any possible bid before buyout groups HgCapital and Montagu Private Equity revealed their offer. The inquiry is a part of a continuing focus at the regulator on insider trading ahead of major announcements, the newspaper added.

The Financial Services Authority is investigating a jump in the share price of Biffa, the waste services group, that occurred before an announcement that two private equity firms had made a £1.2 billion bid for the company.

Vodafone sought last night to play down suggestions that Arun Sarin, its chief executive, is set to reap a £45 million windfall from the turnaround in the mobile phone operator’s fortunes. Reports claimed that Mr Sarin’s potential windfall had been boosted by the 33 per cent jump in the company’s share price over the past year.