Business briefing: the top stories you need to read today

Good morning

Markets extended what is being dubbed a "Santa rally" yesterday, with some recovery in oil and the Russian rouble. We will be keeping tabs today as the Christmas wind down continues. This morning we have Paul Krugman's take on what Putin is up to.

Our lead, however, is that Irish fuel group Petrogas is considering floating its Applegreen service station business on the stock market in 2015.

Tom Lyons reports that Global University Systems, one of the biggest private education providers in the world, has reached a student recruitment agreement with IBAT, the Temple-bar based independent third level college.

The Department of Social Protection finds itself cast as Scrooge after leaving thousands of welfare recipients out of pocket over Christmas by deducting too much local property tax. Dominic Coyle has the story.

Other highlights today are Fiona Reddan's look at the best and worst performing investment funds of the year, and John Fitzgerald's column is on how the economic recovery may encourage emigrants to return.

Finally...The Irish Times business team would like to wish all our readers a Happy Christmas. Business Today returns on January 5th and don’t miss our review of the year on Tuesday December 30th.

John McManus

Business Editor