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Fitch Ratings says that Europe's oil refining sector is experiencing considerable cash flow pressure due to a cyclical trough, particularly with regards to depressed refining margins and low refinery utilisation rates.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) crude oil production averaged 28.89 million barrels per day (b/d) in October, up 60,000 b/d from September's 28.83 million b/d, a Platts survey of OPEC and oil industry sources and analysts showed November 12.

The average conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to 5.35 percent, according to Bankrate.com's weekly national survey. The average 30-year fixed mortgage has an average of 0.38 discount and origination points.

Despite a number of key issues such as land use and competition for feedstocks supplies for traditional food and feed uses, global use of biofuels is excepted to more than double from 2009 to 2015, according to a new global analysis released by Hart's Global Biofuels Center. Leading the expansion is the United States with a growth of total biofuels use of more than 35%. Brazil will grow domestic supplies by 30% and more than double export volume. Indonesia and Malaysia will more than double production of palm oil biodiesel, while Germany will remain the largest producer of biofuels in Europe.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) crude oil production averaged 28.79 million barrels per day (b/d) in August, up 220,000 b/d from July, as Iraq and several other producers raised volumes from the previous month, a Platts survey of OPEC and oil industry officials and analysts showed September 8.

Fitch Ratings says that whilst the gold price remains near historic highs due to 'flight to quality' led investor demand, it expects prices to remain range bound in the short-term.

NYSE Euronext announced trading volumes for its global cash equities and derivatives exchanges for August 2009 . Trading volumes in August generally rebounded from July levels resulting in year-over-year increases across all trading venues with European cash and derivatives volume up 5.3% and 15.9%, respectively, and U.S. cash and derivatives volume up 6.4% and 66.9%, respectively.

Results from the Employee Ownership Foundation's 18th Annual ESOP Economic Performance Survey show that 88.5% of ESOP companies outperformed the stock market in 2008. The results indicate respondents' companies outperformed three major stock indices in 2008 including the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the NASDAQ Composite, and the S&P 500.

Individual investors are increasingly taking investing into their own hands, according to a survey of 450 retail investors conducted by leading online broker Zecco (www.zecco.com) between July 27-31, 2009. The survey also indicates that investors are optimistic about the short-term future of the Dow and technology and energy stocks, and are dipping into their savings accounts -- coming "off of the sidelines" -- to buy equities.

The global mobile gaming market will grow at a 16.6 percent CAGR to reach $18 billion in 2014, driven by the explosive mobile subscriber growth in emerging markets, according to the latest report by Pyramid Research (www.pyr.com), the telecom research arm of the Light Reading Communications Network (www.lightreading.com).