Oil prices soared on Monday, owing to weak dollar plus projections of higher demand amid hopes of economic recovery.

November delivery of Light, sweet crude oil jumped 2.1 per cent to settle at $73.27 per barrel, on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

It was the first time crude futures have jumped past $73 per barrel since August 24.

Brent crude on the ICE Futures Exchange soared by 1.9 per cent to $71.36 per barrel.

The flow of fresh money into the venture capital industry dropped to its lowest level in the past six years during the third quarter.

A fresh study made by the Thomson Reuters along with National Venture Capital Association revealed that venture capital fundraising dropped as only 17 firms raised fresh capital in 3Q, the fewest since the third quarter of 1994.

Last year 63 firms had raised money during the third quarter.

Venture firms lifted around $1.56 billion during the third quarter, the lowest since the 1Q of 2003.

Barclays Plc is mulling over plans to spin off a £4 billion portfolio of complex credit assets, in a move that would help the lender in strengthening its balance sheet.

As per the Financial Times, people familiar with the matter said that Barclays was looking at a transaction to shift assets off its balance sheet worth about £4 billion in a similar deal it undertook previous month with $12.3 billion portfolio.

Struggling sportswear group JJB Sports has confirmed that it was still on track to raise £100 million via rights issue.

The £100 million fund raising plan was suspended last Friday to probe false claims of illegitimate payments to executive chairman Sir David Jones.

It was informed that JJB Sports was very concerned by the nature of these rumors and thus passes on the investigation to the Financial Services Authority.

UK interest rates will remain at their record low of 0.5 per cent for the next few years as it will help in bolstering UK’s battered economy.

As per a report prepared by the Centre for Economics & Business Research, key interest rates will remain at 0.5 per cent until 2011 and will not touch 2 per cent level until 2014.

But, the think tank, CEBR, said all that would lead to tax increases plus cuts in spending.

Pubs giant Punch Taverns may hack the value of its estate by over £600 million.

Market analysts are projecting a fall of around 40 per cent an annual profit for the company. 

According to market estimates Punch Taverns may see its pre-tax profits to drop to about £161 million as compared with £262 million last year.

The estate values about £6.2 billion. 

BAA, the Glasgow airport operator, has confirmed that it was mulling over plans to close one of its terminals over the winter in order to slash costs.

Donald Morrison, a spokesman for BAA, said the airports operator was pursuing talks with airlines over the possibility of closing Terminal-2 at Glasgow for a few weeks during the winter.

Mr. Morrison said, "We are currently looking at a range of options to reduce costs over the quieter winter months, when we traditionally have fewer passengers."

Citigroup Inc. announced on Friday the sale of its Phibro LLC unit to the US oil producer, Occidental Petroleum Corp. in a move that is expected to solve regulatory problems for the bank.

Occidental Petroleum Corp., a Los Angeles energy company, said it would acquire the rights to Phibro in a deal worth around $250 million.

Speaking on the deal, oil analyst Ben Dell said, “Oxy historically has not been an aggressive hedger or trader.”

Bank of America Corp. has requested a federal judge that a jury should decide the case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission over huge bonuses paid to the Merrill Lynch executives.

Bank of America Corp. joined the Securities and Exchange Commission when it filed an application in federal court in Manhattan, demanding jury trial in place of a judge trial in the bonuses case.

The trial in the case is scheduled for March after a judge declined a $33 million settlement previous month.

Sunrise Senior Living has agreed to sell its 21 assisted living facilities to an affiliate of Tenn.-based Brookdale Senior Living Inc. in a deal worth $204 million.

The properties named to be sold by the Sunrise are in California, Georgia, Colorado, Connecticut, New Mexico, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Brookdale Senior Living said it would finance the deal with around $134 million of mortgage debt plus its cash on hand.

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said the general election would be a contest between the optimists and pessimists.

Gordon Brown further said it would be a battle of growth versus unemployment and Labour boom versus Troy bust.

Speaking on the issue, Mr. Brown said, "The Tories are pessimists, they're for an age of austerity, they're for cutting the help, therefore allowing unemployment to continue to rise."

He added that cuts in the public sector planned by the Tories would lengthen the economic slump.

Trinity College, Cambridge has acquired London's O2 Arena in a deal worth £24 million.

Trinity College has bought Meridian Delta Dome, the company that holds the 999-year lease of the entertainment venue.

Under the deal, Trinity College will acquire the rights to the rental income paid by Anschutz Entertainment Group, which runs the venue.

Meridian Delta Dome is a joint venture between UK's Quintain Estates and the Australian company, Lend Lease.

The UK has outshined the United States to be ranked as the World's top financial centre, however there are doubts regarding UK's economic stability.

The rankings were compiled by the World Economic Forum, in which the UK has secured the top position among the financially most-developed 55 countries in the world.

But on the other hand, the UK got at 37th position in the stability ranking, below Nigeria and Panama.

Australia jumped to 2nd position, while the US slipped to third rank behind the UK and Australia.

The airports operator BAA said there was only a modest decline in passenger traffic in September, depicting green shoots for the market recovery.

In September, BAA handled 13 million passengers, representing a decline of 2.6 per cent from a year earlier. This decline is similar to the July and August performances at airports operated by BAA.

Six months earlier in March the rate of decline was reported at more than 11 per cent.

British telecoms giant BT Group is going to double the number of households that will be able to use its ultra-fast broad band network.

BT said that the fibre-to-the-premises, which offers download speeds of up to 100 megabits per second, will be made available to at least 2.5 million UK households by 2012.

Steve Robertson, BT Openreach CEO, said, “Today's announcement will help the UK climb the speed league tables.”

Previous year the company had announced its plans to run past 1 million households.