WORLD FINANCE UPDATE:
The Australian dollar is lower after the release of some good US employment data.
At 0700 AEDT on Friday, the local unit was trading at 88.91 US cents, down from 89.14 cents on Tuesday, before the Christmas break.
The Australian stockmarket is set to open higher on the back of solid gains on Wall Street after some strong US employment data.
US stocks and the greenback rallied overnight after a report showed that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week had its biggest fall since November 2012.
ELSEWHERE:
NEW ORLEANS - A US federal judge has rejected BP's argument that a multibillion-dollar settlement over the company's massive 2010 Gulf oil spill shouldn't compensate businesses if they can't directly trace their losses to the spill.
JAKARTA - Indonesia will allow increased overseas investment in a range of sectors as it seeks to boost slowing growth and lure back foreigners who fled during recent market turmoil.
WASHINGTON - Sales of new US homes edged lower in November after a strong rise the prior month, according to Commerce Department data.
WASHINGTON - US businesses have stepped up their orders for long-lasting manufactured goods in November. And a key category that signals business investment plans climbed at the fastest pace in 10 months.
NEW YORK - American Express has agreed to pay at least $US75.7 million ($A84.92 million) to end an investigation into what regulators say was misleading marketing of some discontinued card products.
LONDON - BlackBerry co-founder Michael Lazaridis has trimmed his stake in the troubled smartphone pioneer to just below 5 per cent after selling 3.5 million shares during the past two days.
PARIS - France's number of registered jobseekers rose by 17,800 in November to 3.29 million, the labour ministry says, challenging government claims to have bucked a trend of spiralling unemployment.
ANKARA - Turkey's Central Bank has stepped up its defence of the lira, after its value sagged amid a political crisis and the winding down of US monetary stimulus.
NEW DELHI - Shares of India's Apollo Tyres have rocketed by nearly eight per cent on investors' hopes the company would walk away from a $US2.5 billion ($A2.80 billion) debt-funded deal to buy US-based Cooper Tire & Rubber.
ALGIERS - Rafik Khalifa, a former Algerian tycoon who once owned an airline and a string of companies, has been extradited to his homeland from Britain, Algeria's APS news agency reports.
