Asian share markets were largely steady on Thursday, struggling to regain multi-month highs, while Shanghai shares see-sawed after a 5 percent sell-off the previous day that sent other markets reeling. Crude futures hovered at $63 a barrel, after a drop of 5.8 percent on Wednesday when data from the United States, the world's top oil

Yahoo Inc investors are disappointed it could not milk more money from Microsoft Corp, but said they were relieved a deal was struck that would allow Yahoo to focus on its other, stronger businesses. The companies signed a 10-year pact on Wednesday under which Microsoft will power search queries on Yahoo's sites and Yahoo's sales

House prices in Britain rose for a third month running in July, the Nationwide Building Society said on Thursday, providing further evidence that property prices may have stabilised despite low turnover. The mortgage lender said house prices rose 1.3 percent this month, the fourth increase in five months. That took the annual rate of decline

US Stocks opened lower on Wednesday as a larger-than-expected 2.5 percent drop in June new orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods revived worries that the economic recovery might be weak. Falling commodity prices also weighed on shares of natural resource companies, and investors fretted about the impact of an overnight sell-off in Chinese stocks. The

British low-cost airline easyJet has predicted a full-year pretax profit of 25-50 million pounds ($41-$82 million) despite the severe industry downturn, while maintaining its fleet growth plans to 2011. The carrier said revenues had risen 12 percent to 721 million pounds in the third quarter and, although August would be crucial, it was confident of

Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc inked a 10-year Web search deal to better compete against market leader Google Inc but stopped short of combining their display advertising businesses. Yahoo shares fell 7.5 percent, as some investors were disappointed by the limited scope of the deal. Shares of Microsoft edged higher, while Google shares fell 1

European share indexes were higher in early trade on Wednesday, lifted by the banking and chemical sectors following positive results from Spain's biggest bank Santander and chemical group Bayer. By 0833 GMT the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares was up 0.7 percent at 909.51 points. The index has gained around 40 percent since