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

Oil prices headed slightly lower Monday, marking a quiet end to a record-breaking year, although rising demand and geopolitical ...

FT.com - US stocks finished a tumultuous year lower on Monday, amid thin volume, as investors digested fresh data on the housing market.

US stocks finished a tumultuous year lower, amid thin volume, as investors digested fresh data on the housing market.

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%.

Stocks gained some traction Monday afternoon, after languishing earlier in the session, on the final trading day of the year.

Not so long ago, Mexico floated along as a low-cost producer to the auto parts world. But now its niche is threatened by global rivals who can trump it with lower salaries or superior quality and productivity

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%.

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) -- 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.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks opened with losses Monday on the final trading day of 2007, with existing-home sales data for November due for release. The Dow Jones Industiral Average fell 52 points to 13,313.52, led lower by Home Depot and Citigroup . The S&P 500 fell 5.8 points to 1,472.63 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 13 points to 2,661.03.

Shares in Game Group hit an all-time high Monday after the computer and video game retailer said it expects to beat market expectations following strong sales over the Christmas period. More broadly, the FTSE 100 index ended lower in shortened trading.

FT.com - London equities ended the last session of 2007 with a fall - the FTSE 100 closed 20 points lower at 6,456.9, a loss of 0.3 per cent, dominated by resource stocks.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures saw a slight pullback while oil futures were steady in early action Monday. Gold for February delivery slipped $2.90 to $839.80 an ounce and oil futures for February delivery rose 5 cents to $96.05 a barrel.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. dollar fell Monday against the Japanese yen and the British pound before the highlight of what's expected to be a low-volume day, the release of existing-home sales figures for November. The British pound was back over $2, up to $2.0058 from $1.9963, and the dollar slipped 0.3% to 111.95 yen. The euro edged lower to $1.4715 and fell from record levels against sterling.

BHP Billiton has led a tumble on the bourse in a shortened pre-holiday session.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Strategists at Citigroup expect double-digit returns in 2008, according to a note published Monday. "European equities should be supported by lower rates, macro resilience, earnings growth, reasonable valuations and liquidity," the strategists said. They are sellers of sectors exposed to financial or consumer leverage, but buyers of food and beverage, industrial goods and services, personal and household goods, telecoms and technology.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Europe stocks weakened out of the gate on Monday, a half-day of trade ahead of the New Year's holiday. Air France-KLM shares rose 1% in early trading Monday, following Friday's news that it's the preferred bidder to buy Alitalia . Cairn Energy , the Scottish oil explorer that surged last week on the back of deal speculation, strong oil prices and its re-entry into the FTSE 100, slipped 1.6%. London Scottish Bank tumbled over 16% after taking a provision and warning it won't be able to pay its final dividend. The FTSE 100 slipped 0.2% to 6,462.70 in London and the CAC 40 dipped 0.2% to 5,616.79 in Paris. German and Swiss markets were shut.

Air of Arctic origin swirls into Chicago Monday night and Tuesday, and the resultant temperature crash sends the city's readings from the lower 30s today to near zero, at least in the suburbs, 24 to 36 hours later.