PRESS DIGEST - Wall Street Journal - Nov 6

Nov 6 (Reuters) - The following were the top stories in The Wall Street Journal on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. * The U.S. filed criminal charges against 14 people, including lawyers and an ex-Moody's analyst, in an expanding insider-trading probe that had identified some $40 million in improper profits. * The flood of cash into commodities is abating amid worries prices could fall and evidence that some popular investment products have failed to live up to their promises. * A looming federal rule to cap the interest rates paid by weak banks could accelerate their demise and make life even harder for depositors. * Wal-Mart Stores Inc extended its holiday price war into new territory by slashing online prices on 10 hotly anticipated DVDs, including the new Star Trek and Harry Potter releases, to $10. Within hours, Amazon.com Inc and Target Corp matched some of Wal-Mart's online prices on pre-orders of the DVDs. * Shoppers in the United States cautiously re-emerged in October at both the low-priced and upscale ends of the market, pushing retail sales for the month up modestly from October 2008, the second straight gain after a year of declines. * Starbucks Corp's profit soared in its fiscal fourth quarter, thanks mostly to cost-cutting efforts, but the retailer also saw improvement in demand for its coffee drinks. * CVS Caremark Corp said it has been losing more business than it has been gaining, and disclosed that the Federal Trade Commission is investigating its business practices, raising questions about the soundness of the $27 billion merger between the giant drug chain and big pharmacy-benefit manager that created the company in 2007. * Fannie Mae will allow homeowners facing foreclosure to stay in their homes and rent them for as long as a year, as part of the government's latest effort to help troubled borrowers, while keeping more foreclosed properties from hitting the housing market. * Generating greater retail-banking competition in the U.K. may be more difficult than expected, despite moves intended to lure new competitors to the market. * The Iraqi Oil Ministry said it has awarded a consortium led by Exxon Mobil Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc the right to develop the West Qurna-1 oil field, representing the first American-led team gaining access to the country's oil patch. * For the first time since December, Sirius XM Radio Inc began adding subscribers, a promising sign for the paid-radio business. Sirius, which ran into financing troubles that nearly sent it into bankruptcy early this year, is still suffering as consumers keep a tight lid on their spending, and it may lose subscribers again in the fourth quarter. * Nord Stream, an $11 billion pipeline that would pump natural gas from Russia to Germany and bypass Ukraine, cleared its last major regulatory hurdles on Thursday when Sweden and Finland both gave the green light to a project that could redraw Europe's energy map. Keywords: PRESS DIGEST/WSJ (Compiled by Tenzin Pema; Bangalore Equities Newsdesk [phone]; within U.S. [phone]) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved.

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