Business news for Mon, 31 Dec 2007 & with word francisco. 18 news.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- VeriFone Holdings Inc. said late Monday it probably will not be able to submit its annual report before March despite requesting an extension of the deadline to Jan. 14 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. VeriFone is in the process of restating financial statements for the first three quarters of its fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 2007. It also noted that it is not certain how much time will be required for it to complete the restatement process.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- South Korea-based Jeju Air ordered five Next-Generation 737-800s for $370 million, Boeing Co. said Monday. The 737s will be the first Boeing airplanes to enter the Jeju Air fleet. Jeju Air provides domestic flights between the resort island of Jeju and Korea's mainland.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- U.S. closed lower on Monday but notched gains for 2007, led by the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the last day of trading down 101 points, or 0.8%, at 13,264.82, the S&P 500 Index fell 10 points, or 0.7%, to 1,468.33, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 22 points, or 0.8%, to end at 2,652.28. For the year, the Nasdaq climbed 9.8%, the blue-chip index rose 6.4%, and the broader index gained 3.5%.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- International stock funds enjoyed a rising tide in the past 12 months that lifted most portfolios, and fund managers predict that 2008 will be the seventh consecutive year in which foreign-stock funds top their U.S. rivals.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Quest Software Inc. has filed its quarterly reports for the periods ended March 31, June 30 and Sept. 30, 2007 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said Monday. As a result, the company is now current with all its SEC periodic reporting obligations.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Commerce Bancorp Inc. completed the sale of its insurance brokerage business, Commerce Insurance Services, to a group led by Commerce Insurance Services' Chairman George E. Norcross and President Michael Tiagwad, Commerce Bancorp said Monday. The sale includes the commercial property and casualty, employee benefits, and various specialty insurance lines of Commerce Insurance Services. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Motorola Inc. and Metrologic Instruments Inc. have reached an agreement that settles all outstanding patent infringement disputes between the two companies and their respective subsidiaries, Motorola said Monday. As a part of the agreement, the companies have entered into a patent cross-license for a limited term in the field of barcode scanning and mobile computing. The specific terms of the settlement are confidential.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Consolidated Mercantile Inc. has completed the sale of Polyair Inter Pack Inc. to Glencoe Skydome Holdings, an affiliate of Glencoe Capital, in a private deal for $6.2 million. The sale has been under consideration as a part of the company's continuing evaluation of potential strategies to maximize shareholder value, according to Consolidated Mercantile.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Winnipeg Commodity Exchange, a subsidiary of IntercontinentalExchange , will be known as ICE Futures Canada, effective Jan. 1, IntercontinentalExchange said Monday. The name change is in line with ICE's other futures subsidiaries, ICE Futures U.S. and ICE Futures Europe, the exchange operator said.

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.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. Federal Reserve added $17.5 billion in temporary reserves to the banking system Monday through overnight repurchase agreements, or repos, through the New York Fed's Open Market Desk. "The large operations this morning are intended to offset the drain to reserves arising from an elevated balance in the Treasury's account at the Fed," the New York Fed said in a statement on its Web site. The Fed injected $13.5 billion through a 4-day repo, and $4 billion through a 2-day repo. "Clearly the Desk is looking to provide a lot of liquidity into the system for the turn of the year," wrote analysts at Action Economics.

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.

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) -- The dollar was mixed Monday, gaining on the euro but slipping against the yen and British pound sterling on the last trading day of the year. "The U.S. dollar continues to trade with a soft tone on the last day of 2007 in keeping with the past year's trend," wrote currency analysts at Brown Brothers Harriman. The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was at 76.210, up from 76.190 in late U.S. trading Friday. The dollar was buying 111.53 yen, down from 112.55 yen late Friday. The euro was trading at $1.4677, down from $1.4715 Friday and the pound was at $2.0027, up from $1.9932 Friday.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures fell for the first time in six days on Monday, as the dollar, which tends to move in the opposite direction of gold, rose for the first day in six against a basket of major currencies. Gold futures for February delivery lost $3.7, or 0.4%, to $839 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It fell to an intraday lower of $836.1 earlier. The dollar index, which tracks the value of the greenback against a basket of major currencies, moved up for the first time in six days. The dollar also gained against the euro.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures rose modestly on Monday, boosted by continued concerns on political tensions in Pakistan and tight supplies in the U.S. Crude futures for February delivery gained 60 cents, or 0.6%, to $96.6 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose to an intraday high of $96.78 earlier in electronic trading. "The geopolitical upheaval triggered by the [former Pakistani prime minister Benazir] Bhutto assassination could get stirred up again ahead of the January 8th elections," said Edward Meir, an analyst at futures brokerage MF Global, in a research note.

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.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The Chinese government has said it will allow direct election of Hong Kong's governmental leader, called the chief executive, by 2017, according to a media report. The decision, while seen as a concession to growing pro-democracy forces, disappointed advocates who had hoped for a direct election in 2012, when current executive Donald Tsang's term ends, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition. The chief executive now is picked by an 800-member assembly that includes dignitaries and legislators appointed by the Beijing government, according to the report. Free election of the chief executive were promised when China took possession of the territory from the United Kingdom in 1997, the Journal said.