* Dow rebounds 270 points and Nasdaq gains 38 points
* Gordon Brown is to press ahead with plans for more part-time working rights for 4.5 million staff, rejecting demands from business leaders that the measure be dropped when new laws are announced in the Queen's Speech
* Banks will face huge fines if they do not treat their customers fairly
* Lloyds TSB to announce a series of commitments to help its small business customers through the recession -- FT interview
* FSA says that Halifax tracker loans must fall in line with bank rate cuts
* Senior architects of Guy Hands' acquisition of EMI to leave Terra Firma
* 3i Group to cut 15% of workforce
* Oil prices fall to 3-1/2 year lows
* US carmakers appeal to Congress for up to $34 billion in emergency loans; Ford and General Motors chiefs offer to forgo salaries
* Ford sales drop 31%; says economy is worsening
* Demand for redundancy advice soars
* General Electric sees fourth quarter earnings towards lower end of range
* UK mortgage lending will remain below 2007 levels despite government pressure on banks to match last year's lending volumes, according to Michael Coogan, director general of the Council of Mortgage Lenders
* GlaxoSmithKline's asthma drug, seen as a successor to Advair, improves lung function and was well tolerated by people participating in a mid-stage trial
* HSBC unaware of any probe into its US private banking
* Thai court dispands ruling party; protests to end
* US chain store sales fell 0.4% last week, according to the Redbook
* Debenhams to hold another pre-Christmas sale for three days from December 3-5
* Marks & Spencer repeats 20%-off sale day tomorrow
* UK building sector contracts sharply
* Government in crisis talks with credit insurers
* World's biggest credit insurer, Euler Hermes, says premiums must rise as companies fall
* Anxiety grows as US Fed's emergency lending is extended
* Australia cuts interest rates by one percentage point
* Shell and Anglo American are rethinking development of an Australian project that would have turned coal into liquid gas
* UBS drops LCH.Clearnet in favour of X-Clear
* Goldman Sachs heads for quarterly $2 billion loss
* Palm plans 20% cost cuts after sales halve
* Collapse of Bowie Castle provides snapshot of the weakening jobs market
* Ex dividends in 3i Group, AB Foods, Johnson Matthey, Land Securities, London Stock Exchange, National Grid, Severn Trent and Vedanta Resources account for 2.41 points in the FTSE 100 index
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved.
Australian topless bathing ban urged