(Reuters) - New U.S. single-family home sales fell unexpectedly in October and prices dropped to a seven-year low, a government report showed on Wednesday, pointing sustained weakness in the housing market following the end of a home-buyer tax credit. The Commerce Department said sales dropped 8.1 percent to a 283,000 unit annual rate after an upwardly revised 308,000 unit pace in September.

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(Reuters) - Banks showed further signs of recovery in the third quarter, helped by the lowest level of loan-loss provisions since before the 2007-2009 financial crisis, but drew a warning from a top regulator not to go too far. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Chairman Sheila Bair said banks should not cut reserves too quickly given the fragile economy.

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(Reuters) - Carlyle-backed pipeline company Kinder Morgan Inc, which was taken private in a $14.6 billion management buyout in 2007, on Tuesday filed with U.S. regulators for an initial public offering of up to $1.5 billion. It is the latest in a string of private equity-backed portfolio companies to move to go public, such as Carlyle-backed government consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH.N).

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(Reuters) - U.S. stocks held their losses on Tuesday after minutes were released from the Federal Reserve's most recent meeting. The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was down 149.51 points, or 1.34 percent, at 11,029.07. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX was down 16.39 points, or 1.37 percent, at 1,181.45. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC was down 37.45 points, or 1.48 percent, at 2,494.57.

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(Reuters) - J Crew Group Inc (JCG.N) agreed to a $2.86 billion buyout as its sales slump, but some on Wall Street expect the U.S. apparel retailer with a devoted following will attract higher bids. Under the proposed deal, TPG Group and Leonard Green & Partners LP will buy the company for $43.50 a share, a premium of more than 15 percent compared with J Crew's share price before the deal was announced.

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(Reuters) - FBI raids on hedge funds were a sign that prosecutors feared evidence in a widening insider trading probe could be destroyed, but the dramatic daytime searches may also have been intended to shake up the secretive hedge fund world, legal experts said. Investigators most likely swooped down on the funds Monday in Connecticut and Massachusetts because they had a major concern that subpoenas for information would not be properly obeyed, lawyers and investigators said.

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(Reuters) - Shares of speech-recognition software maker Nuance Communications Inc touched a 2-1/2-year high on Tuesday, after a website posted a video of Apple Inc co-founder Steve Wozniak saying the iPhone maker had bought Nuance. The stock rose as much as 12 percent to $19.19, but later pared some gains to trade up 5 percent at $18. More than 9 million shares changed hands by 1 p.m. ET -- five times the normal volume.

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(Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson, which has been beset with recalls of Tylenol and other consumer products over the past year, has recalled almost 5 million additional packages of Benadryl, Motrin and Rolaids because of manufacturing "insufficiencies." J&J said the recalls, like many of the earlier ones, involved products made at its plant in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. The facility was closed earlier this year to fix quality-control lapses, including unsanitary conditions.

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(Reuters) - U.S. stocks dropped more than 1 percent on Tuesday as rising tensions on the Korean peninsula added to worries over how euro zone debt woes could affect domestic markets. North Korea fired scores of artillery shells at a South Korean island, killing two soldiers and setting houses ablaze, and South Korea returned fire. The iShares MSCI South Korea Index Fund (EWY.P) fell 5.3 percent.

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(Reuters) - Unemployment rates dropped in more than half of U.S. states in October from a year earlier, according to a government report released on Tuesday that showed improvement in the jobs market continues to vary across the United States. Jobless rates dropped in 29 states and the District of Columbia from October 2009, rose in 16 states and were unchanged in a further five, the U.S. Labor Department said.

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