(Reuters) - Investors who were heartened when U.S. retailers reported their best holiday sales season in three years hope for one more gift: upgraded earnings forecasts. Wall Street analysts expect top U.S. chains to report this week that sales at stores open at least a year, or same-store sales, rose 3.4 percent in December, according to Thomson Reuters data. That follows a 6 percent increase reported for November.

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(Reuters) - Global food prices rose in December, with the FAO Food Price Index at a record high, the U.N Food and Agriculture Organization said on Wednesday, past 2008 highs when rising food prices sparked riots in a number of countries. Up for the sixth month in a row and fueled by surging sugar prices and rises in cereals and oils, the index was the highest since records began in 1990, in nominal terms, and topped the high of 213.5 in June 2008, during the food crisis of 2007/08.

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(Reuters) - Applications for U.S. home mortgages ebbed in the last two weeks of the year amid the holiday season as loan rates hovered around their highest levels in seven months, an industry group said on Wednesday. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity rose 2.3 percent for the week ended December 31 and dipped 3.9 percent in the prior week.

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(Reuters) - Time Warner and two U.S. private equity funds are on a shortlist of potential buyers for assets belonging to Dogan Yayin , Turkey's biggest media group, sources familiar with the deal said on Wednesday. Dogan Yayin is also preparing to sell its flagship Hurriyet daily newspaper separately, another source close to the process told Reuters, adding investment bank Goldman Sachs will invite initial bids by February1.

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(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs is not giving its multimillionaire clients a lot of time or information to think about investing in a $1.5 billion Facebook private offering. According to a customer who received a letter from Goldman, clients were given just until the end of this week to decide whether they want a piece of the social networking giant.

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(Reuters) - American Airlines is in active discussions and expects to reach settlements with the two largest U.S. online travel agents, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a senior executive at the airline's parent AMR Corp (AMR.N). The company, which blocked Expedia Inc (EXPE.O) and Orbitz Worldwide Inc (OWW.N) from selling its tickets after a contract dispute, is committed to changing the way others sell its tickets, the Journal said, quoting Cory Garner, American's director of distribution strategies.

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(Reuters) - Stock indexes were little changed on Tuesday as optimism over the economic outlook was offset by a decline in consumer stocks. Tuesday's small move follows a jump in stock indexes Monday as manufacturing data around the world prompted investors to inject new money into equities.

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(Reuters) - New orders received by factories unexpectedly rose in November, and orders excluding transportation recorded their largest gain in eight months, according to a government report on Tuesday that pointed to underlying strength in manufacturing. The Commerce Department said orders for manufactured goods increased 0.7 percent after dropping by a revised 0.7 percent in October.

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(Reuters) - Shares in oil major BP hit a six-month high on Tuesday after reports rival Royal Dutch Shell considered a takeover bid, and that economic damages from its oil spill will be lower than forecast. BP shares were up 5.6 percent to 491.7 pence by 1351 GMT (8:51 EST). The Daily Mail newspaper, citing sources close to the Anglo-Dutch group, reported Shell weighed an opportunistic bid for BP as crude gushed into the Gulf last summer, but was discouraged by the potentially uncapped legal liabilities.

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(Reuters) - The five largest mortgage loan servicers, including Bank of America Corp and JPMorgan Chase & Co, may be the first to settle with 50 state attorneys general who are investigating foreclosure practices, Bloomberg reported, citing Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller. The attorney-general group expects to reach five separate agreements with the five largest servicers, the news agency said, quoting Miller, who heads the multi-state probe.

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