New York - US stocks rallied Monday after oil prices dropped below 115 dollars per barrel, boosting both retailers and credit card companies.

Wal-Mart Stores was set to increase its profit forecast, and American Express and Capital One Financial Corp both rose more than 2 per cent.

Beijing - Shares on China's two stock markets plunged by more than 5 per cent on Monday, following a similar fall on the previous trading day at the end of last week.

The key Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks shares traded in local and foreign currencies, lost 5.21 per cent of its value, ending the day down 135.65 points at
2,470.07.

The fall took the Shanghai index to its lowest point since December 2006.

The Shanghai Daily newspaper said Monday's fall was partly spurred by a forecast of a slowing post-Olympic economy by investment bank and analyst Goldman Sachs.

Karachi  - Pakistan stocks roared upwards Monday by 2.7 per cent despite political upheaval as local institutions continued heavy buying to prop up depressed prices, traders said.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index gained 262 points to close at 10,171 after trading below 10,000 for most of the last week.

The 30-share index Sensex continued its positive run on account of heavy buying activity seen across the board.

Banking, realty, oil & gas, auto stocks led the advances, while some IT stocks went down.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap gained more than 1% each.

At 1:14 p.m., Sensex stood at 15,456.41, up 288.59 points, after touching a high of 15,488.06 and a low of 15,367.97, whereas the broad based Nifty gained 69.10 points at 4,598.60, after hitting a high of 4,616.00 and a low of 4,529.35.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Security and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has approved new guidelines for currency future. The banks would participate in the forex future after the approval of RBI. The new guidelines would be effective from August 6.

The currency exchange will be allowed in US dollars or in Indian Rupees. The RBI will issue future guidelines from time to time on currency exchange issue. The banks with net worth of Rs 500 crores and minimum CRAR of 10 per cent are to be considered eligible for future trade.

Manila  - Philippine share prices soared 2.81 per cent on Monday on optimism over easing world oil prices and Wall Street's strong performance last week.

The 30-share composite index gained 75.71 points to close at 2,768.52 from Friday's finish of 2,692.81.

A total of 3.774 billion shares worth 3.073 billion pesos (69.840 million dollars) were traded.

Gainers led losers 83 to 34, while 46 issues were unchanged.