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*TNT Express shares down 42 pct, PostNL down 36 pct. *DHL rules out bid, FedEx in background. AMSTERDAM, Jan 14- UPS is dropping its $7- billion bid for Dutch delivery firm TNT Express after European anti-trust regulators said they would veto it, leaving TNT's future in doubt and almost halving the value of its shares.

It was the biggest drag on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite indexes. "They've had great growth, but the growth is going to slow because we have some formidable competitors we didn't have when the iPhone first came out," said Alan Lancz, president at Alan B. Lancz& Associates Inc in Toledo, Ohio.

Apple supplier Cirrus Logic tumbled 4.8 percent to $30.05, while Qualcomm lost 1.6 percent to $63.88. The S&P 500 and Dow were poised to open only modestly lower, but the Nasdaq looked set to fare worse as Apple weighed.

SAO PAULO, Jan 11- Brazil's beef exports by value were a record $5.77 billion in 2012, up 7.3 percent from 2011, on increased demand and a favorable exchange rate, the country's main beef industry group said on Friday. In 2012, Russia accounted for 19 percent of Brazil's beef sales.

SINGAPORE, Jan 14- Indonesia's rupiah spent the latter half of 2012 shielded from speculative strikes and volatility by the country's central bank. Traders in Jakarta say exporters have started hoarding dollars in expectation of a drop in the currency.

WOODCLIFF LAKE, New Jersey, Jan 13- BMW has a message for the incorrigible speed freaks looking for a more politically correct set of wheels in this era of energy efficiency: switch to a diesel.

PARIS/ DETROIT, Jan 11- The U.S. car market's rebound may be slowing- but it still looks like the best bet to many of the global industry's top brass as they converge on Detroit for the 2013 auto show.

Jan 8- Monsanto Co, the world's largest seed company, raised its earnings outlook for fiscal 2013 on Tuesday and delivered surprisingly strong first-quarter results, citing growth in Latin America and early U.S. spring seed sales.

Jan 9- ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker, will restart blast furnace B at its Gijón plant in Spain on Jan. 15 after a six-month shutdown for maintenance works amid weak market conditions, the company said on Wednesday.

*'Core' issuers Austria, Netherlands easily sell bonds. LONDON, Jan 8- Euro zone government bonds were broadly higher on Tuesday as investors snapped up a wave of new bonds from across the credit spectrum, including Ireland's latest step back into long-term debt issuance.

BAMAKO/ PARIS, Jan 13- French fighter jets pounded Islamist rebel strongholds deep in northern Mali on Sunday as Paris poured more troops into the capital Bamako, awaiting a West African force to dislodge al Qaeda- linked insurgents from the country's north.

*Transocean rises as Icahn acquires stake. Earnings season picks up the pace this week with reports expected from companies including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Intel and General Electric. Thirty-eight S&P 500 companies are due to report results this week.

*Higher global supply, soft China imports to keep copper in ranges. LONDON, Jan 14- Copper edged up on Monday bolstered by a weak dollar, a decline in economic gloom in Europe, and better growth prospects in top consumer China, though gains were capped by worries about rising Chinese stockpiles.

*Earnings season picks up the pace this week with reports expected from companies including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Intel and General Electric. *Transocean Ltd has disclosed that billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn has acquired a 1.56 percent stake in the offshore rig contractor and is looking to increase that holding.

Jan 14- For 17 years, Tom Ward and Aubrey McClendon teamed up to build Chesapeake Energy Corp into the second-largest natural gas producer in the United States. At SandRidge Energy Inc, Ward adopted some of the same idiosyncratic business practices deployed by McClendon.

LONDON, Jan 14- Oil rose above $111 a barrel on Monday as concern about supply resurfaced amid growing optimism over signs that the world's biggest economies are on their way to a steady recovery.

Apple has asked Japan Display Inc, Sharp Corp and South Korea's LG Display Co Ltd to roughly halve supplies of LCD panels from an initial plan for about 65 million screens in January-March, the Japanese daily said, citing people familiar with the situation, adding the U.S. firm also cut orders for other iPhone components.

LONDON, Jan 14- Holiday season shoppers shunned Windows 8 desktops and notebooks in favour of tablets and smartphones, resulting in a 4.3 percent fall in PC sales in the fourth quarter, research firm Gartner said on Monday.

AMSTERDAM, Jan 14- United Parcel Service Inc said it would drop its 5.2 billion euro bid for Dutch delivery firm TNT Express on the expectation of an EU veto, a sharp blow that halved the value of TNT's shares within minutes.