MARKETS / FINANCE

After a blockbuster performance over the long Thanksgiving weekend, risk-taking retailers such as Macy's Inc and Amazon.com Inc were rewarded with big gains in their shares, while chains that are still tinkering with their strategies reaped smaller rewards.

Stocks jumped on Monday as optimism grew that European leaders would come up with a new plan to resolve the region's debt crisis and following a strong start to the U.S. holiday shopping season.

Gold prices surged Monday along with equities on hope that drastic action by France and Germany can save the Eurozone from its two-year-old sovereign debt crisis.

Bond insurer Assured Guaranty Ltd filed new claims against JPMorgan Chase & Co over a mortgage-backed security sold by Bear Stearns, saying more than 35 witnesses have come forward to testify about how loans in the $337 million transaction were misrepresented.

(For other news from the Reuters Global Media Summit, click on http://www.reuters.com/summit/GlobalMedia11?pid=500)

Sales of new homes rose in October and the supply of homes on the market fell to its lowest level since April of last year, showing some healing in the battered housing sector.

A German regional court has opened the door to an investor law suit against credit rating agency Standard & Poor's over its assessment of Lehman Brothers securities before the collapse of the U.S. investment bank.

Stocks surged about 3 percent on Monday on hopes that fresh proposals may emerge out of Europe to help solve the region's debt crisis.

Defections from Morgan Keegan are slowly hollowing out the $1.5 billion brokerage, which has recruited almost no experienced hires to fill the gaps left by advisers who have left since June.

A judge on Monday rejected a proposed $285 million settlement between Citigroup Inc and the top U.S. market regulator over the sale of toxic mortgage debt and ordered a trial.

Silver mining company shares rocketed higher Monday as the price of the gray metal surged and the broader stock market indexes rose more than three percent.

Stocks surged about 3 percent on Monday on hopes that fresh proposals may emerge out of Europe to help solve the region's debt crisis.

New single-family home sales rose in October and the supply of homes on the market fell to its lowest level since April of last year, showing some healing in the battered housing sector.

Stocks jumped about 3 percent on Monday on hopes that fresh proposals may emerge out of Europe to help solve the region's debt crisis.

Online gaming firm Nexon Co said on Monday it would raise up to 98 billion yen ($1.3 billion) in an initial public offering this month, pushing ahead with its planned listing even as a massive hacking attack threatens to dampen excitement for the stock.

Gold miner Polyus Gold's plans for a premium listing on the London Stock Exchange have been delayed, after an investment committee chaired by prime minister Vladimir Putin said it would not consider approval for the move until 2012.

Peruvian police fired tear gas on Friday to break up a protest at Newmont Mining Corp's proposed $4.8 billion Conga gold mine as the government tried to mediate a bitter environmental dispute over the project.

James Murdoch will probably survive a row with investors to be re-elected as chairman of BSkyB with the support of News Corp but that link to his father's firm, tainted by the phone hacking scandal, could spell more problems with the regulator.

The first shipment of gold bars arrived home in Venezuela on Friday after President Hugo Chavez ordered that almost all of the country's foreign bullion reserves be repatriated from Western bank vaults.

US Gold Corp said on Monday it has completed a preliminary feasibility study (PFS) on its Gold Bar mining project in Nevada.

Stocks extended their gains on Monday, with the S&P and Nasdaq rising 3 percent on hopes that fresh proposals may emerge out of Europe to help solve the region's debt crisis.

Stocks were set for a sharply higher open on Monday on hopes that fresh proposals could be emerging out of Europe to help solve the region's debt crisis.

Annual compensation for employees at big Wall Street firms could fall 27-30 percent from a year earlier to the lowest level since the 2008 financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a compensation study conducted by the Options Group.

West Africa-focused miner Randgold Resources has cut its 2011 production target for the second time this year after a perfect storm of difficult mining conditions, work stoppages and a mill breakdown at its Tongon mine in Ivory Coast.

The escape route from risky peripheral euro zone debt into higher-yielding emerging markets is becoming increasingly tortuous, as the debt crisis marries the performance of all assets closer together.

Stock index futures soared on Monday on optimism over the latest round of proposals out of Europe designed to corral the growing euro zone debt crisis.

Gold prices will climb to $1,875 per troy ounce this month and to an average of $2,000 next year, Barclays Capital Research said Monday in a report.

Germany and France stepped up a drive on Monday for intrusive powers to reject national budgets in the euro zone that breach EU rules, as a market rout of European debt eased temporarily on hopes of outside help for Italy and Spain.

Indian investors of gold, the world's biggest consumers of bullion, remained on the sidelines even though traders offered discounts of up to $5 per ounce.