GLOBAL MARKETS-Oil slump to near 7-year low weighs on U.S. shares

* U.S. shares fall as oil majors slide
* Brent crude hits nearly 7-year low after OPEC meeting
* Dollar gains for second straight session
* Weaker euro helps boost European shares

(Updates prices to open of U.S. markets)
By Sam Forgione
NEW YORK, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Oil prices skidded to their
lowest level in nearly seven years on Monday on continued
concerns about oversupply, with losses in major oil shares
dragging down U.S. indexes, while European stocks benefited from
a weaker euro.
Brent crude prices LCOc1 fell to $41.20, their lowest
since February 2009 after the Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) ended its policy meeting on Friday in
disagreement over production cuts and without a reference to its
output ceiling.
Oil majors Exxon (N:XOM) XOM.N and Chevron (N:CVX) CVX.N were the
biggest drags on the U.S. Dow and the S&P 500 indexes. Increased
strength in the dollar for a second straight session made it
more expensive to hold crude positions.
Brent crude LCOc1 was last down $1.52, or 3.53 percent, at
$41.48 a barrel, while U.S. crude CLc1 was last down $1.70, or
4.25 percent, at $38.27 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.
A weaker euro helped boost European shares, which rose 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 and
competing imports more expensive.
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.
MSCI's all-country world equity index .MIWD00000PUS , which
tracks shares in 45 nations, was last down 0.62 percent at
404.64.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 0.91 percent at
17,684.69. The S&P 500 .SPX was down 0.91 percent, at
2,072.62. The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC was off 0.78 percent, at
5,101.98.
Europe's broad FTSEurofirst 300 index .FTEU3 added 0.45
percent, and was last at 1,464.4. The euro EUR= was last down
0.32 percent, at $1.0849.
The dollar rose on expectations the U.S. Federal Reserve is
on track to raise interest rates next week in the wake of a
solid November jobs report. The dollar index .DXY , which
tracks the greenback versus a basket of six currencies, rose
0.29 percent, to 98.639.
"It's pretty much a done deal they will move," Charles
St-Arnaud, currency strategist at Nomura Securities
International in New York said of the Fed, which will hold a
policy meeting on Dec. 15-16.
U.S. Treasury debt prices rallied as investors consolidated
positions in a week 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
11/32 in price to yield 2.23 percent, from a yield of 2.28
percent late Friday.
Spot gold prices XAU= fell from a three-week high and were
last down $10.47, or nearly 1 percent, at $1,076.14 an ounce
after the gains in the dollar.