The sale in small markets will leave News Corp. with 27 stations in major markets including New York, Boston and Los Angeles.

The media conglomerate, which owns the New York Post, a controlling stake in BSkyB satellite TV service, and 20th Century Fox movie studio, recently closed a $5.6 billion deal to buy the Wall Street Journal publisher, Dow Jones.

The sale will probably be completed in the third quarter, News Corp. said in a statement Saturday. The purchase will help Oak Hill, the buyout firm founded two years ago by Robert Bass, a Texas oil billionaire, create a broader U.S. network. In May it paid $575 million to acquire stations in Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Arkansas from The New York Times Co.

"It is part of News Corp.'s strategic decision to shed low-growth, noncore assets," said Richard Dorfman, managing director of the investment firm Richard Alan.

The days leading up to Christmas -- which in recent years have been positive for stocks -- will bring readings on the housing market, minutes from the Federal Reserve's meeting last month, and earnings reports including results from major retailers. The data should keep investors busy as they stare down tumbling home prices, billions of dollars of losses at banks that made losing bets on subprime mortgages, and crude oil flirting with $100 a barrel.

Though the end of the year usually sparks buying, recent developments have made a December rally look like a pipe dream to many market participants, who are simply hoping stocks can hold onto their gains. The Dow Jones industrial average is up 5.73 percent year-to-date, the Standard & Poor's 500 index is up 2.85 percent, and the Nasdaq composite index is up 9.19 percent.

At this point, Wall Street expects the U.S. housing market to keep wilting through next year, and perhaps into 2009. It also assumes financial institutions will be taking another giant round of writedowns during the fourth quarter, one that may be larger than the third quarter's approximately $45 billion in credit-related losses.

What investors remain unsure of is how long it will take the Wall Street banks to bounce back from their losses, and if consumers and the broader economy will survive the worst housing market in decades.

Last week, investors sent stocks higher and lower as they wrestled with uncertainty. The Dow finished last week 1.03 percent; the S&P 500 index ended 0.35 percent, and the Nasdaq finished 0.35 percent.

Between June 2000 and February 2006, Qantas engaged in a conspiracy to eliminate competition by fixing the rates for shipments of cargo to and from the US and elsewhere, according to the charges filed Tuesday against the carrier, the Justice Department said in a statement.

"The shipment of consumer products by air transportation is critical to our global economy. Our investigation into this important industry will continue, and we will aggressively pursue those who engage in criminal conduct that harms American consumers," said Thomas Barnett, assistant attorney general in charge of the department's antitrust division.

During the time period covered by the felony charge, Qantas was the largest carrier of cargo between the United States and Australia and earned more than 600 million dollars from its cargo flights to and from the US, the department noted.

The department said that Qantas has agreed to cooperate with its ongoing investigation under the plea agreement, which is subject to court approval.

In August, British Airways and Korean Air Lines pleaded guilty to illegally fixing prices on international passenger and cargo flights and were sentenced to pay separate 300-million-dollar fines.

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.