NATIONAL

DOW JONES TO LAUNCH WEEKEND EDITION OF WSJ Dow Jones & Co. yesterday said it will introduce a weekend edition of its flagship newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, in a bid to broaden its advertising mix. The newspaper, which is currently published Monday through Friday, will be published on Saturdays, beginning on September 10, 2005. Dow Jones expects to add roughly 150 new employees, most of them in news, to staff the Saturday newspaper, executives said. A weekend edition of the newspaper should help further diversify Dow Jones’s revenue, which is heavily dependent on business-to-business advertising. The Weekend Edition of the Journal will be delivered at no additional charge to subscribers, Dow Jones said. Although the company isn’t increasing the price of a subscription when it launches the weekend edition, the price may go up at a later date, executives said.

– Dow Jones Newswires

INTERNATIONAL

OPEC TO INCREASE PRODUCTION TARGET BY 1 MILLION BARRELS OPEC will increase its oil production target by 1 million barrels a day later this year in a move widely viewed as more symbolic than significant, given that the cartel has been exceeding the new output limit since the beginning of the year. Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheik Ahmad Fahad al-Ahmad al-Sabah said Wednesday the cartel agreed to the decision to raise output by nearly 4%,adding it would take effect November 1. “We will give a signal to the market that we are working hard for the stability of the market,” he said. But Leo Drollas, chief economist at the London-based Center for Global Energy Studies, said the decision was irrelevant. “It’s a PR exercise to prove to the consumer that OPEC actually likes them,” he said. “It’s not going to help the market at all.” The move will increase OPEC’s self-imposed output limit for all its members, except Iraq, from 26 million barrels a day to 27 million barrels, but the cartel is already producing 27.4 million barrels and accounts for one-third of the world’s oil supply.

– Associated Press

REGULATORY

BRIDGEWAY, FOUNDER SETTLE FUND-FEE PROBE Mutual-fund adviser Bridgeway Capital Management Inc. and its president, James Montgomery, agreed to pay almost $5.2 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges of illegally overcharging mutual-fund customers. The SEC said the Houston company had charged $4.4 million in performance fees to its mutual funds using a formula that inflated those fees. Bridgeway, based in Houston, manages 11 no-load mutual funds with combined assets of $1.4 billion.

“Mutual-fund managers must ensure that advisory fees are assessed in strict accordance with the law,” said Harold F. Degenhardt, administrator of the SEC’s Fort Worth office, in a statement. “This is particularly true with respect to performance based fees, which must be a fair reflection of a fund’s performance during the entire performance period.”

The SEC said the overcharges involved three of Bridgeway’s mutual funds. Bridgeway will reimburse shareholders more than $4.4 million, plus almost $500,000 in interest payments under the settlement. The company will pay a $250,000 penalty, and Mr. Montgomery will pay a $50,000 penalty. Mr. Montgomery, who many know for his ethical behavior, took responsibility. “As founder of Bridgeway Funds, this calculation was absolutely my responsibility, and I am the one at fault,” he said in a letter posted on his Web site.

– Dow Jones Newswires