6:30AM European markets slip Monday on miners weakness and oil.
European shares were lower by mid-morning on Monday. The U.K. FTSE 100 index slipped 0.4% at 5,853, the German DAX Xetra 30 index dipped 0.3% at 5,777 and the French CAC-40 index edged down 0.5% at 5,049. BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Anglo American all lost more than 3% and oil and gas shares including Royal Dutch Shell and Total also lost.

Telecom Italia, mobile-phone provider, is expected to announce Monday that it will sell its mobile unit, according to an online report Sunday. Vodafone Group which gained 0.7% after it said that it plans to launch a fixed-line broadband service before the end of the year. U.K. insurance company Prudential gained 1.5% after a report suggested that reinsurance group Swiss Re has approached Prudential in a bid to buy its closed life fund business for around 5 billion pounds ($9.4 billion).

Oil prices dropped below $66 a barrel Monday amid expectations that OPEC ministers would not change their production targets when they meet later in the day. Light, sweet crude for October delivery fell 28 cents to $65.97 a barrel in electronic trading on the NYME.

Gold traded lower Monday at $596.20 an ounce, down $18.70 an ounce from Friday close of $614.90. The euro rose against the U.S.dollar.The European currency bought $1.2683 in early European trading, up from $1.2676 late Friday in New York, after a sell-off in the yen supported the U.S. currency. The British pound also strengthened against the dollar on Monday, trading at $1.8660, up from $1.8649 in New York. The dollar gained against the Japanese currency, trading at 116.96 yen, up from 116.87 on Friday.

5:00AMGold futures fell on Friday on a strong dollar and falling oil price.
December gold fell $7.60 to $617.30 a troy ounce on the NYME. December silver lost 40 cents to $12.295 an ounce. October platinum settled down $27.40 to $1,229.50 an ounce and December palladium sank $21.90 to $333.60 an ounce. December copper contract shed 8 cents to settle at $3.5680 per pound.

The October crude oil contract lost $1.07 to end at $66.25 a barrel after hitting an intraday low of $66.00, the lowest level for a front month contract since April 5. The October heating oil declined 4.44 cents to $1.8432 a gallon and the October gasoline ended down 3.19 cents at $1.6098 a gallon.

October natural gas finished down 4.3 cents at $5.675 per million British thermal units. On the New York Board of Trade, September Arabica coffee futures closed down 1.05 cents at $1.0245 a pound and December lost 1.45 cents to $1.0615. Futures on raw sugar in foreign ports for October advanced 0.27 cent to settle at 11.89 cents a pound.