Business news for Mon, 31 Dec 2007 & with word shares. 44 news.

Shares of MBIA and AMBAC stand beside mortgage and housing stocks as some of the 2007's biggest casualties. But at least one may have found its bottom.

Reuters - Home builders and financial issues, the biggest casualties of the subprime lending meltdown, were hit again by tax-motivated selling in recent weeks but could rebound a bit early in the new year, money managers said on Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Home builders and financial issues, the biggest casualties of the subprime lending meltdown, were hit again by tax-motivated selling in recent weeks but could rebound a bit early in the new year, money managers said on Monday.

Google shares edged below the $700 mark Monday as investors sussed out a report that the Internet giant is exploring a method of selling newspapers’ advertising space online.

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.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. has received clearance from The Committee on Foreign Investment for Borse Dubai's investment in Nasdaq, the New York-based exchange said Monday. The approval paves the way for Nasdaq to proceed with its purchase of Stockholm-based OMX AB and allows Borse Dubai to transfer its OMX shares to Nasdaq once its stake in OMX reaches at least 67%, Nasdaq said. Nasdaq had originally announced the approval on Friday but withdrew the announcement, noting that it was distributed in error.

Shares in Alliance & Leicester soared 57p to 705p today after reports that takeover talks started by Spain's Banco Santander last month are 'not dead'

Shares in Alliance & Leicester bank leapt almost 9% after reports that the mortgage lender had held talks with Spain's Banco Santander, the owner of Abbey.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Delta Air Lines and ExpressJet Holdings saw their shares rise 2.1% and 3.6%, respectively, to pace a broad advance in the airline sector on the last trading day of the year. The Amex Airline Index added almost 1% to 34.69 points on Monday even as crude advanced toward $97 a barrel. Frontier Airlines , Mesa Air Group and JetBlue Airways were the only decliners among the 14 components in the benchmark index.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Telecommunications stocks mostly edged lower on quiet Monday action, led by a 1% drop in Sprint Nextel Corp . Other notable decliners included Tellabs Inc. , Ciena Corp. and Juniper Networks Inc. , all down around 1% in the session before the New Year's holiday. Among the few gainers were Vonage Holding Corp. and Nortel Networks Corp. The two companies settled a patent dispute, although the agreement does not require payment from either side. Shares of Vonage were up 7% and Nortel rose 1.6%.

Europe stocks endeda half-session of trading flat, but finished the year with the first losses since 2002 as worries about the credit crunch and rising energy prices stymied action.

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.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Technology stocks began the last trading day of the year in the red Monday on what was expected to be a relatively light session ahead of the the New Year's Day holiday. Among bellwether tech stocks, Google Inc. shares fell $4.67 to $697.81 amid a report that the company is in discussions with several newspaper publishers to sell advertising space online. Declines also came from Apple Inc. , Microsoft Corp. , Dell Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc. . The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index fell 11 points to 2,663.

AFP - Europe's main stock markets fell in shortened trade on Monday -- the final dealing day of a year in which gains for equities have been curtailed by worries about the troubled US economy.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Vonage Holdings Corp. said Monday that it has agreed in principle with Nortel Networks Corp. to end the pending litigation between them. According to a release from Holmdel, N.J.-based Vonage, the contemplated settlement involves a limited cross license to three Nortel and three Vonage patents and does not call for monetary payments by any party. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Nortel filed a lawsuit against Vonage, alleging that Vonage violated nine patents related to Internet phone services, countering Vonage's claims that Nortel had violated three of its patents. Shares of Vonage, which closed Friday at $2, were up about 9% in premarket trading Monday.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- IDM Pharma Inc. said Monday that Sanofi-Aventis has decided to stop participating in the development of investigational melanoma therapy Uvidem. As a result, IDM Pharma, an Irvine, Calif.-based biotechnology company, said it expects to restructure, cut its workforce and review the assets and costs associated with products under development. The board is expected to approve the final restructuring plan during the first quarter of 2008. Shares of IDM Pharma closed Friday at 94 cents.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Workstream Inc. said Monday it received an unsolicited offer from a U.S.-based payroll business to determine the viability of a merger between the two companies. Any deal will be subject to the standard conditions including the completion of due diligence, regulatory approval, shareholder approval, board approval and the required valuations, Workstream said. Shares last traded at about 65 cents each.

Paris-based Publicis Groupe led a tumble in European media stocks this morning, following a negative report on the sector from a big Wall Street securities firm. Shares of Publicis were off 1.2% to $37.89, following the release of the report from Citigroup's equity research team.

Slight gains took shape early for U.S. shares, though existing-home sales data could change all that on 2007's final trading day.