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Due to speculations that said that the Alaskan crude pipeline will close down and US has been able to make large stockpile which would allow it to make up for the loss, the oil prices went down. It shed away early gains to trade near $89 per barrel.

On Monday, the oil futures climbed by 1.4 per cent after the Trans- Alaska Pipeline System shut down because of leakage. This pipeline alone accounts for 15 per cent of all of the US crude output.

Department store Company, Debenhams has announced that the bad weather has cost the company close to 30 million pounds in form of festive sales. But this is not the only company that is facing this kind of results since heavy snowing has led to drop in sales of almost all retail outlets.

There are, however, a few companies like the grocer, Morrisons which saw a rise of 1 per cent in the like-for-like sales excluding VAT and fuel charges. Then there is Blacks Leisure which is into the making of black leather jacket and saw roaring sales during this time of the year.

Survey data has shown that during the fourth quarter of this year, the growth rate has slowed down. And this despite the fact that surge in exports has boosted the performance of the manufacturing sector.

The services sector has shown poor performance and the slowing down is the effect of that.

The British Chamber of Commerce survey close to 6,000 companies and as a result they were able to say that the manufacturing has done really well in the last quarter. During this time, the companies expanded by 0.4 per cent, and similar performance was seen in the purchasing managers' indices.

The government has re-insisted that it does not want to interfere into the bonus matters of top executives of banks, even if they have become state-owned.

One of the most prominent one in this category is Royal Bank of Scotland whose CEO, Stephen Hester, has been under criticism for his pay of £9 million during last year.

All those who are against his pay package say that the bank he is taking care of is 83 per cent owned by the taxpayers and then £45billion of direct aid has been poured into the bank already.

Shares of makers of hip and knee replacements, Smith & Nephew Plc saw a rise which was highest in the last six years. The price rise was propelled by rumors that it had refused a 7 billion-pound ($10.9 billion) takeover offer made by Johnson & Johnson.

The offer was said to have been made somewhere close to Christmas. No comments on the same were made by David Illingworth, Smith & Nephew's chief executive officer. He, however, did comment on an occasion where he did say that such speculations had been going in for the last 10 years.

The exporters in India were given a very ambitious target by the concerned department recently of achieving the $500-billion mark by 2014-15.

With this view in mind they are moving ahead and exploring newer markets leaving behind the traditional old markets and moving towards Asean, Latin American and African markets.

Ramu S. Deora, president of the Federation of India Export Organisations believes that of the $500-billion to be achieved a major chunk will only be contributed by the Asian continent with a share of $230 billion.