(Updates to close, changes prices)
* U.S. shares fall as oil majors slide
* Brent crude hits nearly 7-year low after OPEC meeting
* Dollar up for second day; weaker euro boosts Europe shares
By Sam Forgione
NEW YORK, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Oil prices skidded to their
lowest level in nearly seven years on Monday, knocking down
shares of major oil companies on Wall Street as a global glut
showed no signs of abating.
Brent crude prices LCOc1 fell to $40.60, the lowest since
February 2009, after a meeting of members of the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries Friday ended in disagreement
over production cuts and without a reference to its output
ceiling.
Exxon (N:XOM) XOM.N , down 2.6 percent, and Chevron (N:CVX) CVX.N , which
fell 2.7 percent, were the biggest drags on the U.S. Dow and
benchmark S&P 500 indexes. Increased strength in the dollar for
a second straight session also made it more expensive to hold
crude positions.
Brent crude LCOc1 was last down $2.26, or 5.3 percent, at
$40.74 a barrel, while U.S. crude CLc1 settled down $2.32 or
5.8 percent at $37.65 per barrel.
"As a result of the collapse in oil and gas prices today,
the market is worried that you're going to see less capital
spending, you're losing a lot of a good-wage jobs in the oil
patch, and people are worrying that we're going to see a
snowball of defaults among high-yield energy issuers," said
Scott Wren, senior global equity strategist at Wells Fargo (N:WFC)
Investment Institute in St. Louis.
MSCI's all-country world equity index .MIWD00000PUS , which
tracks shares in 45 nations, fell 0.5 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 0.7 percent to
17,730.51. The S&P 500 .SPX lost 0.7 percent to 2,077.07. The
Nasdaq Composite .IXIC was off 0.8 percent, at 5,101.81.
The dollar rose on expectations the U.S. Federal Reserve is
on track to raise interest rates next week in the wake of
November's solid jobs report. The dollar index .DXY , which
tracks the greenback against a basket of six major currencies,
rose 0.39 percent, to 98.74.
A weaker euro helped boost European shares from three-week
lows hit last week when the European Central Bank disappointed
investors with its latest stimulus package. A weaker euro helps
stocks by making European exports cheaper relative to competing
imports.
An outlier among European stocks was Electrolux ELUXb.ST ,
which sank over 13 percent after its deal to buy General
Electric's GE.N appliance business fell through.
Europe's broad FTSEurofirst 300 index .FTEU3 added 0.45
percent to close at 1,464.4. The euro EUR= was last down 0.5
percent, at $1.0831.
U.S. Treasury debt prices rallied as investors consolidated
positions in a week that is generally thin on economic data
after last Friday's stronger-than-expected U.S. November jobs
report.
Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes US10YT=RR were last up
7/32 in price to yield 2.24 percent, from a yield of 2.28
percent late Friday.
Spot gold prices XAU= fell from a three-week high and were
last down $13.50, or 1.2 percent, at $1,071 an ounce after the
gains in the dollar.