Despite an analysts' upgrade, shares of Virgin Mobile USA Inc. fell Friday to their lowest point since the company's recent trading debut after the company said its third-quarter loss widened as operating expenses rose.

The wireless service provider's shares fell $1.54, or 14.4 percent, to $9.19 Friday. Earlier, the shares traded as low as $8.07.

Virgin Mobile said late Thursday that its third-quarter loss widened to $7.3 million, compared with a loss of $5.1 million in the year-ago quarter.

The company said its pro-forma loss totaled 15 cents per share, compared with a loss of 10 cents per share in the year-ago period.

Revenue rose year over year to $319.5 million from $271 million, as an increase in service revenue overshadowed a decline in equipment sales.

In a note to clients Friday, Stanford Group Company analyst Michael Gary Nelson upgraded the stock to "Hold" from "Sell," saying challenges the company faces -- such as increasing competition -- are well balanced with opportunities for raising shareholder value.

The analyst called Virgin Mobile's third-quarter results "mixed" and its fourth-quarter outlook for between 350,000 and 400,000 net customer additions "weak." But he also said its guidance for 2008 EBITDA -- or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- of between $155 million and $175 million is strong.

The investment bank said it wrote down $7.9 billion in fixed-income instruments called collateralized debt obligations and from defaulting subprime mortgages _ more than the $5 billion writedown it estimated earlier this month. The result was a net loss for the quarter of $2.3 billion, after total revenue plummeted 94 percent.

The worse-than-anticipated loss signaled to investors that the financial sector may be in a more dire situation than feared because of the credit squeeze that was triggered in part by spikes in mortgage defaults. Meanwhile, the National Association of Realtors' 10 a.m. EDT report on existing home sales was projected to show a drop in September for the seventh straight month.

The technology sector appeared to be losing momentum from earlier in the week. Amazon.Inc. said late Tuesday its quarterly profit more than quadrupled, but it only beat per-share estimates by a penny. Investors didn't see enough reason to bring the Internet retailer's shares, already at their highest level since 1999, even higher.

Schwab reported earnings of $1.53 billion, or $1.28 per share, for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with $266 million, or 21 cents per share, a year ago.

The latest earnings include a $1.2 billion after-tax gain from the sale of U.S. Trust, which was sold July 1 to Bank of America Corp. for $3.3 billion.

Excluding the gain, Schwab's earnings from continuing operations were $323 million, or 27 cents per share.

Schwab reported third-quarter revenue of $1.29 billion versus $1.07 billion in the year-ago period.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial, on average, forecast earnings of 25 cents per share on revenue of $1.26 billion for the quarter. Analysts do not typically include one-time items in their forecasts.

Operating earnings were boosted by $37.3 billion in net new assets brought by clients to Schwab during the third quarter, a 66 percent increase from the same quarter last year.

The new assets helped Schwab reach a record $1.441 trillion in total client assets as of Sept. 30.

Nomura Holdings, Japan's largest brokerage, said it would pull out of the U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities market and cut a quarter of its U.S. workforce, pushing it to a big quarterly loss.

Nomura is the latest global investment bank forced to swallow bigger losses on products tied to to U.S. mortgage market, which was thrown into turmoil this year by rising defaults on subprime home loans.

It now expects to post a group pretax loss of 40-60 billion yen ($340-$511 million) for the July-September second quarter due to losses on residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) and charges to cut its U.S. workforce to 900 from 1,217 as of June.

Nomura, which has been buying residential mortgages and bundling them for resale as securities, said it would focus its efforts in the U.S. on expanding its asset management business and electronic brokerage unit Instinet.

"This should all but clear up our problems in the United States, and we believe we can build a structure that will allow us to achieve a speedy recovery from the second half," Nomura Chief Financial Officer Masafumi Nakada told a news conference.

Nomura had said earlier this year it may pull out of the RMBS business as part of a reorganisation of its U.S unit, which lost 74 billion yen on a pretax basis in the two quarters to June as it wrote down the value of its mortgage loan portfolio.

Rupert Murdoch has entered a dark horse in high-stakes races before, and won. On Monday, the News Corp. media titan trots out the Fox Business Network.
Two years in the making, the channel will challenge General Electric Co.'s highly profitable CNBC network as it seeks to redefine business news for average Americans faced with increasingly complex decisions about their financial futures.

Murdoch already has knocked CNN off the cable news throne with Fox News Channel. Can he do the same to NBC Universal's profit machine, whose audience of affluent professionals is one of the most sought-after advertising targets?

"CNBC has a monopoly on an in-demand demographic, but never underestimate Murdoch," said Porter

Bibb, a managing partner at Mediatech Capital Partners, a financier of media businesses. "Success might take a while, but this is the right thing for them to do."

Fox defines success—aside from ratings—as expanding the business news audience by "demystifying" the subject, according to Kevin Magee, the Fox News executive vice president in charge of the new business channel. There are plenty of people not watching business news because it's presented in an "off-putting" way, he said.

Magee would not disclose the programming schedule, citing competitive concerns. But FBN's flashy Web site promises the network will cut through jargon to speak to the average investor, echoing comments by Murdoch last month that his channel

Wal-Mart (WMT) shares climbed 3% Thursday after the giant retailer surprised Wall Street by boosting its earnings estimate for the third quarter, despite tepid sales.

The Bentonville, Ark., company said it now expects to make 68 cents to 69 cents a share for the quarter, up from its previous forecast of 62 cents to 65 cents a share. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected earnings of 63 cents a share.

The company said it had improved expense controls at its Wal-Mart Stores division, which expanded profit margins. That helped offset relatively meager sales growth.

Wal-Mart said same-store sales rose 1.4% from a year ago in September, at the lower end of its forecast for a 1% to 3% rise. Analysts expected a 1.8% increase in same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year.

Sales in established Wal-Mart stores inched up 0.8%, and those at warehouse-club operator Sam's Club jumped 4.4%.

"Overall, apparel and home remain soft. Company research reinforces that customers remain concerned about their finances, especially the cost of living," Wal-Mart said. "In addition, unseasonably warmer weather in much of the country, coupled with tighter consumer spending, negatively impacted key seasonal categories."

The report came as many retailers reported sluggish sales for September, including Wal-Mart rival Target (TGT) and department-store chains like J.C. Penney (JCP) and Macy's (M) . While several chains attributed the drop to warmer-than-average weather, the companies are also dealing with inventory missteps and the threat of tighter consumer spending.