A summary of financial and business news from The Associated Press at 0000 GMT. Stories carry ``f'' or ``i'' category codes and move on this circuit in expanded form: NEW YORK AP Blue-chip stocks bounced back Tuesday from a steep slide with the profit-taking behind Monday's sharp downturn easing just as the Dow slipped below 9000. The Dow Jones industrial average initially extended Monday's 214-point plunge by another 128 points but reversed course before midday and finished 16.99 points or by 0.2 percent higher at 9133.54. The morning slide had pulled the Dow as low as 8987 and 400 points from last Monday's record mark of 9374.27. US-CLOSING STOCKS LONDON AP Share prices dropped sharply on European stock exchanges Tuesday in a swirl of gloom and profit-taking following big falls on Wall Street and in Asian markets. The London Stock Exchange Europe's largest set the pace with a fall of 3.6 percent on the Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-share index. ``We have seen quite a rally in the last week or so but investors are nervous'' said Tessa Kohn-Speyer investment analyst at Barclays Stockbrokers in London.'' Key indexes were down 5.0 percent in Germany 4.2 percent in Milan and Zurich 4.0 percent in Paris 5.2 percent in Moscow 6.1 percent in Budapest 4.7 percent in Amsterdam 3.4 percent in Oslo 3.2 percent in Dublin and Madrid 2.7 percent Stockholm 2.1 percent in Prague and 1.3 percent in Copenhagen. EUROPEAN-MARKETS NEW YORK AP Pulling off the richest corporate takeover in history Exxon will buy Mobil for dlrs 77.2 billion to create the world's largest company and reunite two of the biggest pieces left by the breakup of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil empire. The deal announced Tuesday joins the two largest U.S. oil and gas companies. However despite the massive size of the new Exxon Mobil Corp. a world oil glut caused by overproduction and weak demand is expected to keep pump prices at rock-bottom levels for now. Exxon Mobil will surpass Royal Dutch-Shell Group as the No. 1 energy company and vault past General Motors Corp. as the largest corporation in the world with dlrs 203 billion in combined revenue last year. Exxon is about twice Mobil's size in annual revenue. US-EXXON-MOBIL BRUSSELS Belgium AP Bent on surviving a new round of mergers shaking up the global oil industry French petroleum giant Total is buying Belgian refiner Petrofina for dlrs 11.8 billion in a deal that would create the world's fifth-largest oil company. The announcement Tuesday came just hours ahead of news that the top U.S. oil company Exxon Corp. was buying the No. 2 company Mobil Corp. for dlrs 77 billion in the richest corporate takeover in history. The deal between Total and Petrofina Belgium's biggest industrial company would create a new company Total Fina that would be the third-largest oil company in Europe. Investors believing that Total may be paying too much for Petrofina sent Total's shares down 12 percent in Paris trading. Petrofina shares rose 18 percent in Brussels. BELGIUM-PETROFINA-TOTAL MOSCOW AP With a dlrs 22.6 billion loan for Russia hanging in limbo International Monetary Fund chief Michel Camdessus launched a new round of talks in Moscow on Tuesday on freeing up the money. Yet Russia's government continued to put off tough financial decisions the IMF says are necessary for releasing the rest of the frozen loan and Camdessus was not expected to announce any breakthroughs. Camdessus met Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov on Tuesday night and is scheduled to hold broader talks with government officials Wednesday. Russia facing mounting debts to workers pensioners and foreign creditors is seeking further installments on a dlrs 22.6 billion IMF-led bailout package reached in the summer. The loan was frozen after Russia succumbed to the Asian economic crisis and devalued the ruble and defaulted on some of its debts in August. RUSSIA-ECONOMY BRUSSELS Belgium AP With just a month to go before the launch of the euro European Union finance ministers reached an 11th-hour agreement Tuesday on who should speak for the single-currency bloc on the world stage. The agreement resolved months of deadlock between big and small euro-zone nations over representation of the 11-nation currency bloc at the G-7 group of world economic powers and other international bodies. Under the compromise the euro-zone's three existing G-7 nations - Germany France and Italy - keep their seats and will take turns to represent the bloc. Smaller nations will get to sit alongside them at G-7 meetings when they hold the rotating euro-zone presidency. German Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine will therefore speak for the euro-zone for the first six months of 1999 to be joined by his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niniisto for second half of the year. EU-FINANCE APW19981201.0064.txt.body.html APW19981201.0006.txt.body.html