8:00AM Dominion agreed to sell most of its natural gas and oil exploration and production operations for $6.5 B.

Energy and power producer Dominion (D: chart) announced Monday an agreement to sell the biggest part of its U.S. onshore natural gas and oil exploration and production operations in two separate transactions for a total of about $6.5 billion.

Dominion''s Permian Basin operations will be bought by Loews Corp. (LTR: chart) for $4.025 billion, while Dominion''s operations in the Rocky Mountains will be taken over by XTO Energy (XTO: chart) for $2.5 billion.

The operations include 3.51 trillion cubic feet equivalent of proved natural gas and oil reserves as of Dec. 31, 2006. XTO said in a statement that it is planning to set up a $500 million limited partnership.


7:30AM NY-6:30PM Mumbai Sensex finishes lower on selling pressure in late trading.

The Sensex on BSE ended Monday 74.98 points, or 0.51%, lower at 14,495.77.

The market-breadth turned negative in late session. As 1,182 stocks advanced, 1,388 declined and 84 remaned the same. Of the 30 stocks in the Sensex, 10 advanced, while all the rest declined. The turnover on BSE was Rs 3,745 crore, compared with Rs 4,709 crore on Friday. On NSE, the turnover was Rs 8,543 crore, lower than Rs 9,872 crore on Friday.

Economic news

Indian companies reported the best net earnings results in fiscal 2007 in three years on mostly higher sales. Almost 1,700 companies have reported their results so far with an increase of 47% over the same period a year earlier.

The President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, came to a visit to India in order to strengthen and expand economic ties. In addition to their robust economic relationships, Brazil and India have formed a common position on major global issues, as part of the G20 group of developing countries.

Trading highlights

Reliance Capital was the most-active stock with a turnover of Rs 143.80 crore followed by MIC Electronics and Indiabulls Real.

Advancers

Following robust global coppe prices, Hindalco rallied to a high of Rs 156 also on talks of a likely takeover. The stock eventually pared gains and finished 4% higher at Rs 147. Hindalco is holding talks with Sterlite Industries to offer separate bids for Alcan of Canada.

SBI and ITC surged 2% each to Rs 1,407 and Rs 165, respectively. SBI rallied on a likely government decision to buy from RBI 59.7% stake of the Reserve Bank in SBI in a deal worth Rs 40,000 crore.

Other banks also advanced in sympathy. ICICI Bank finished 0.6% higher at Rs 933 and HDFC bank ended over 1% higher at Rs 1,165. NTPC and Dr.Reddy''s gained 1% each at Rs 160 and Rs 655, respectively.

Decliners

Tata Motors lost nearly 5% to Rs 711.The company announced that sales were down 4% to 42,558 units May 2007 and commercial vehicle sales dipped to 20,675 units in May 2007 from 21,903 units in May 2006. Passenger vehicle sales declined 3% at 17,580 units in May 2007. Grasim lost 3.2% to Rs 2,440 and BHEL shed 3% to Rs 1,372.

IT stocks dipped on the sustained rupee appreciation. Satyam lost 2.3% to Rs 467, TCS was down 1.2% to Rs 1,204 and Infosys was off 1% to Rs 1,916. Index heavy Reliance Industries lost 0.6% to Rs 1,750.