PLANET BUSINESS

THE NUMBERS: $100The price touched by a barrel of crude oil on Wednesday.

The threshold was passed for the first time after a series of geopolitical risks pushed prices to $99.53, and then two independent traders on the New York Mercantile Exchange floor acted on an urge to make history by conducting a single trade at $100.

1.2 million:The number of new Europeans using the euro as their currency, following Cyprus and Malta's entry into the euro zone on Tuesday.

40: The percentage of directors of Norwegian plcs that must be female from January 1st, with firms that don't comply with the long-heralded rule facing government sanctions.

62.5:The number of books, DVDs and other products ordered per second on Amazon.com on its busiest trading day yet on December 10th, when a total of 5.4 million items were purchased.

QUOTE of the WEEK "For some of you, more pay than Virgin Atlantic can afford may be critical to your lifestyle and if that is the case you should consider working elsewhere."

- Virgin boss Richard Branson is more polite than Michael O'Leary, but his message to staff threatening to strike over pay is more or less the same.

GOOD WEEK 

Business tourism

No need to book your organisation's annual shindig into a soulless auditorium that's wired for sound but devoid of atmosphere: a giant Chinese cave that was used as a secret aircraft factory during the second World War is to be remodelled into a tourist resort. The 50m (164ft) high Haikong cave, near the wartime capital of Chongqing, will be "an ideal place for conferences", according to the local investment bureau.

DVDs

Casino Royale, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End helped DVD sales rise by 9 per cent in the UK last year, with the anachronistically named British Video Association dismissing the threat that digital downloads and piracy pose to physical sales of DVDs and high-definition discs.

BAD WEEK

Factories

The conveyor belt of economic doom and gloom continued this week, as the woes of the Irish manufacturing sector, which contracted in December for the first time since August 2003, were mirrored in the US, where factories unexpectedly put in their worst performance for five years, and in the UK, where manufacturing expanded at a much slower rate than had been expected.

Laptops

A slump in laptop sales has forced Dixons and Currys owner DSG to issue an ominous profit warning, after feverish demand for flat-screen televisions, iPods and games consoles couldn't make up for an 11 per cent drop in sales of computers, as fewer consumers were moved to upgrade to sleeker models in the run-up to Christmas.