[R]Commodities, Metals, and Currencies[/R]

Crude oil rose $1.18 to close at $96.270 per barrel for a front month contract, natural gas increased 6 cents to $7.94 per mBtu, and gasoline futures increased 4.02 cents to close at 247.000 cents per gallon.

Gold increased $1.40 in New York trading to close at $881.70 per ounce, silver closed up 2.5 cents to $15.84 per ounce, and copper for front month delivery increased 1.50 cents to 328.35 per pound and in London copper futures decreased $325.50 to $7,203.00.

Dollar edged lower against euro to $1.466 and lower to 109.990 yen.


[R]12:30PM New York – Aegean Marine declined 15% after a secondary offering and expansion of its marine network.[/R]

Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 49.58 to 12,640.77, Nasdaq increased 7.81 to 2,448.61, S&P 500 gained 4.76 to 1,394.95.

Aegean Marine Petroleum Network fell nearly 15% or $4.94 to $30.37 after it said that it has taken a delivery of tanker.

Amorgos, a 4,600 dwt newly built double-hull bunkering tanker from Fujian Southeast Shipyard in China. The Amorgos is expected to operate out of the Company''s service center located in Gibraltar.

Aegean (ANW: chart) successfully completed a secondary offering of 6.750 million shares at $37.75 on November 14th, 2007. Since then the company stock has declined 20% to $30.42 after reaching a high of $47.75 on October 18, 2007.

Leveret International Inc., which is controlled by Aegean''s founder, Dimitris Melisanidis, and John P. Tavlarios, Director, are expected to sell an additional 872,275 shares of the Company''s common stock, resulting in an aggregate of 7,622,275 shares of common stock sold by the selling shareholders in connection with this offering. The Company will not receive any proceeds from the shares of common stock sold by the selling shareholders.


[R]11:00AM New York – MBIA fell sharply after it plans to raise $1 billion in capital.[/R]

MBIA (MBI: chart) fell 11% or $2.39 to $11.64 after it said that it will cut dividend to 13 cents from 34 cents.

MBIA will raise $1 billion to meet capital requirements of rating agencies to maintain AAA rating. The notes are callable at par at the Company’s option on the fifth anniversary of the date of issuance and every fifth anniversary thereafter.

The press release added that, “The notes will be subordinate in right of payment to all existing and future debt issued, incurred or guaranteed by the Insurance Company, all existing and future claims of policyholders and beneficiaries and all other creditor claims which have priority over claims with respect to the notes under New York insurance law, other than any future surplus notes or similar obligations.”

The company also confirmed that capital infusion plan from private equity company Warburg Pincus is still on track.

The Warburg Pincus investment announced on December 10, 2007. As announced, Warburg Pincus has committed to invest $500 million in common equity at $31 per share and to backstop a $500 million rights offering to the Company’s existing shareholders.

Warburg Pincus will also receive warrants to purchase additional shares at $40 per share. The Warburg Pincus investment is proceeding according to plan, with the common equity investment currently expected to close in January 2008 and the rights offering expected to close in February 2008.

MBIA estimates that it will incur a total of $737 million in loss and loss adjustment expenses for the fourth quarter of 2007. These expenses consist of fourth quarter case loss activity of approximately $614 million and $123 million in unallocated loss reserve activity. The approximately $614 million case loss activity is principally related to MBIA’s insured securitizations of prime home equity lines of credit and prime closed-end second-lien mortgages.