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In a slow week for data, weather (fires in the west, drought in the Southeast), higher oil prices, and lower home sales dominated the business news. A barrel of crude oil sold for over $90 this past week, with a chance that $100 might soon become reality. Home sales were lower but home prices may have started to stabilize. That is less of a negative story than if sales and prices continued to free fall.

Energy demand in Asia is expected to grow significantly on the back of substantial economic growth. The Indian energy industry has been riding a crest following the country’s economic growth, expanding population and per capita expenditures, urbanization, development of the industrial sector, government rural electrification programs, and industrial investments.

Shanghai and Bangalore are well-known international development hotspots, but expert panelists at the CoreNet Global Summit, meeting now in Atlanta, identified the up-and-coming cities that are expected to be the economic hubs of the future.

The Bloomberg Eurozone Retail Purchasing Managers' Index, an indicator based on a mid-month survey of economic conditions in the euro area retail sector and providing data one month ahead of government issued figures, signaled a drop in euro area retail sales in the first month of the fourth quarter. The PMI fell below the 50.0 no-change mark that divides expansion from contraction and, at 47.9 in October, indicated a moderate month-on-month decline in sales. Anecdotal evidence from survey panelists hinted that recent market instability and signs of a general economic slowdown had dented consumer confidence and kept some customers away from the high street.

The emergence of drought in Georgia, dwindling Great Lakes levels, and the fierce competition for water in the American West are part of a complex, urgent water crisis unfolding across the globe.

When Microsoft Corp. paid $240 million for a 1.6% stake in Facebook last week, it acquired the rights to sell Facebook advertising around the world. With 34.5 billion page views in September, according to comScore Media Metrix, Facebook is now the fourth most highly trafficked Web property worldwide.

On 1 November 2007, the Markets in Financial Services Directive will enter into force. The European Commission looks forward to the onset of this landmark law, which will play a central role in creating a robust, common regulatory framework for Europe's securities markets. MiFID will increase competition among exchanges, multilateral trading facilities (MTFs) and investment firms, giving them a "single passport" to operate throughout the EU on the basis of authorisation in their home Member State. Investors will not only have access to a greater number of trading venues, but also a more robust and comprehensive framework ensuring high levels of investor protection. Significant market developments are already underway in anticipation of this new, more competitive environment.

Europeans, across the countries surveyed, are fifty percent more likely than Americans to buy "green" products - from solar panels to hybrid cars to natural/organic foods, personal care and home products, according to the groundbreaking European LOHAS study based on a partnership between Porter Novelli (PN) and Natural Marketing Institute (NMI).

The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. reported third quarter 2007 net income of $365.0 million, or $2.41 per diluted share, an increase of $334.8 million from $30.2 million, or $0.22 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2006, and an increase of $308.9 million from $56.1 million, or $0.39 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2007.