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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is reporting a 10.1 percent increase in first-quarter profit as the world’s largest retailer’s re-emphasis on low prices continues to woo back bargain-hungry shoppers in an uncertain economy.

Wal-Mart says that it earned $3.74 billion, or $1.09 per share, in the quarter ended April 30. That compares with $3.39 billion, or 97 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Net sales excluding membership fees from Sam’s Club rose 8.6 percent to $112.2 billion.

Analysts had expected $1 guaranteed online personal loans.04 per share on net sales of $110.5 billion.

Revenue at stores opened at least a year rose 2.6 percent at its Wal-Mart’s namesake U.S. division. That’s above the 1.4 percent estimate from Wall Street.

The company is offering an upbeat profit outlook for the current quarter.

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JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is facing shareholders five days after disclosing a $2 billion trading loss.

Dimon will speak Tuesday morning at the bank’s annual meeting in Tampa, Fla.

Shareholders will vote on whether to separate the bank’s chairman and CEO positions, both held by Dimon. They will also vote their approval or disapproval of Dimon’s $23 million pay package from last year.

Analysts say Dimon is unlikely to lose those votes.

Investors have pummeled JPMorgan’s stock price since Dimon disclosed the trading loss on Thursday. The stock has dropped 12 percent and lost almost $20 billion in market value.

Dimon got something of a vote of confidence from President Barack Obama, who appeared on ABC’s “The View” for an episode to be aired Tuesday. Obama used the appearance to press for tighter regulation of Wall Street.

“JPMorgan is one of the best-managed banks there is,” the president said. “Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we got, and they still lost $2 billion and counting.”

Obama said the bank was “making bets” in the market for the complex financial instruments known as derivatives. Dimon has said the bank was hedging against financial risk.

A part of the 2010 financial overhaul known as the Volcker rule would restrict banks from some trading for their own profit. Dimon and critics of the financial industry have disagreed over whether the trading in question would violate that rule.

Dimon is likely to repeat his acceptance of responsibility for the bad trade. He said in a TV interview Sunday that he was “dead wrong” when he dismissed concerns about the bank’s trading last month.

“We made a terrible, egregious mistake,” Dimon told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “There’s almost no excuse for it.”

On Monday, Ina Drew, the bank’s chief investment officer and one of the highest-ranking women on Wall Street, left the bank. Drew oversaw the trading group responsible for the $2 billion loss.

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Mattias Loov sought to cut costs for his clients at Stockholm-based H1 Communication AB after the global economic crisis hit the Nordic region. He found a solution 760 kilometers (475 miles) across the Baltic Sea.

H1 now has about 10 percent of its staff in Estonia, where the hourly labor cost is a fifth of Sweden

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BATS Global Markets says it will replace Joe Ratterman as chairman of the board, even as the company’s directors expressed support for him as chief executive.

The announcement Tuesday came after technical difficulties derailed the exchange operator’s initial public offering last week.

BATS operates electronic markets for stocks and stock options in the United States and Europe. The Kansas-based company is a leading platform for high-frequency, computer-driven trading.

In a brief statement, BATS directors said Ratterman "continues to do a tremendous job as CEO of BATS."

"We fully support his leadership, vision and strategic direction as BATS continues to enhance competition and foster innovation in markets worldwide," the statement said.

But the directors still voted to replace Ratterman as chairman under "an enhanced corporate governance structure."

Ratterman, who has been the company’s chairman since 2007, will hold the position until a replacement is named, the directors said saving account payday loan.

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BATS officially withdrew its IPO late Friday after it was forced to halt trading in its own stock and others because the company’s technology malfunctioned.

Ratterman publicly apologized for the problem, saying in a letter to customers that the company’s failure to perform "has no excuses."

BATS is third largest exchange operator in the United States after NYSE Euronext (, Fortune 500), which operates the New York Stock Exchange, and the NASDAQ OMX Group. ()

The company said this week that its troubles have not impacted its market share.

As of Monday, BATS boasted a 10.3% share of the U.S. equities market and a 25.4% share of the European market. 

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Surging oil prices are starting to pinch the pocketbooks of Asian consumers and could quicken inflation and slow economic activity in a region that has led global growth in recent years.

The jump in crude _ the U.S. benchmark is trading near a ten-month high of $107 a barrel from $75 in October _ has sent fuel prices higher across Asia, where only Malaysia is a net oil exporter among the major economies. In Singapore, for instance, a liter of 92-octane gasoline at ExxonMobil stations has risen 6 percent this year to 2.15 Singapore dollars a liter ($6.48 a gallon).

Higher oil prices have already made Asian policymakers think twice about cutting lending rates and implementing other stimulus measures designed to boost economic growth as shockwaves from Europe’s debt crisis spread. If crude gets much higher, it could force central bankers to raise rates, sacrificing growth to tame inflation.

The backbone of Asia’s economy has traditionally been exports to the U.S. and Europe but a growing middle class and a boom in purchasing power in recent years in countries such China and Indonesia have made Asian consumer demand increasingly vital to the global economy.

“I spend most of my day on the road driving clients around to see properties,” said 27-year-old Singapore real estate agent Timothy Chen, who switched last week to a less expensive, lower-octane gasoline to help stem his rising fuel bill. “It’s frustrating because I’m paying more for petrol but I’m not making more money.”

Some in the region, such as Singapore and Hong Kong, import all of their crude and are particularly exposed to higher energy prices, which boost transport and production costs, and therefore the cost of most goods. The cost of crude has spiked recently amid investor optimism that an improving U.S. economy will boost demand and fears that rising tensions over Iran’s nuclear program could lead to global supply disruptions.

“Rising oil prices appear more like a tax on global growth, eating into spending power in the U.S. and Europe, and hitting many Asian economies at a time when they are slowing,” said Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered Bank. “The impact of oil prices on the global economy can never be underestimated. Rising oil prices are usually the biggest threat to continued global growth.”

Asia’s strong trade and government surpluses have so far helped it absorb higher global oil prices without a significant impact on the region’s inflation and economic growth. The International Monetary Fund is forecasting gross domestic product in Asia will expand 6.7 percent this year from 6 no fax payday advances.3 percent last year.

However, GDP forecasts won’t take the sting out of higher fuel costs, especially for the region’s poor.

Hanoi motorbike taxi driver Nguyen Van Hung, 42, said he had to raise his fare by 1,000 dong (5 cents) per kilometer after the government boosted gasoline prices by 10 percent to a record high earlier this month.

“My customers just walked away when I told them I had to raise the fare,” said Hung, who earns about $5 a day and supports a family of four. “They said they could not afford that much.”

Even if the most recent data suggest inflation remains largely in check, Asia may still be hurt by the recent surge in oil prices since it can take months or years for higher energy costs and tighter monetary policies to work their way through an economy, said Sean Darby, chief global equity strategist with Jefferies in Hong Kong.

“Well after the oil shock occurs, the economy will still be impacted,” Darby said.

South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand are the biggest net crude importers relative to the size of their economies while India _ with trade and government deficits and an inflation rate at 6.6 percent in January _ is in a weak position to absorb higher energy costs, analysts said.

Another worry is that higher oil prices will force countries that subsidize consumer fuel costs _ such as India, Indonesia and Thailand _ to spend more on crude and less on other public expenditure that could help economic growth.

China raised gasoline prices 3.3 percent last month to equal a record high of 9,380 yuan per liter ($4 a gallon), but China has in the past been able to absorb increases. Since 2003, gasoline prices have nearly tripled while the country has averaged growth of about 10 percent a year.

“Asia has shown in recent years that high prices are not a barrier to the region’s continued rapid economic growth,” said Daniel Martin, Asia economist with Capital Economics in Singapore.

But if prices jump because of a supply disruption from a violent conflict over Iran’s nuclear program while the global economy slows, the impact on Asia would be worse than, say, a scenario in which prices rise more gradually because Europe has stabilized and the global economy and oil demand are growing faster.

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Associated Press writers Sharon Chen in Singapore and Tran Van Minh in Hanoi, Vietnam contributed.

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Thousands took to the streets of Athens Friday as Greek unions launched a two-day general strike against planned austerity measures Friday, a day after the country’s crucial international bailout was put in limbo by its partners in the 17-nation eurozone.

Police said some 17,000 people were gathering for two separate protests leading to Syntagma Square, outside Parliament. They chanted slogans against painful austerity measures, which include reducing the minimum wage by 22 percent and cutting one in five government jobs in a country which is in its fifth year of recession.

Bailout creditors say Greece has not yet met demands for all the cutbacks, however. Frustrated by days of dithering, they have given political leaders in Athens until the middle of next week to meet the full list of required austerity reforms. Otherwise, the country will lose its rescue loan lifeline, go bankrupt next month and likely leave the euro.

“We are experiencing tragic moments,” Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos told Parliament Friday. “These days are the last acts of a drama that we all hope will lead to a happy conclusion with a voluntary reduction in our public debt and implementation of a framework by 2015 that will allow the economy to stabilize.”

The Greek coalition government, led by Prime Minister Lucas Papademos had hoped some of the heat had been taken out of the crisis after leaders agreed Thursday to a raft of austerity measures they hoped would pave the way for the euro130 billion ($173 billion) bailout package.

However, finance ministers from the other 16 eurozone states put up a roadblock later in the day by insisting that Greece had to save an extra euro325 million ($430 million), pass the cuts through a restive parliament and guarantee in writing that they will be implemented even after planned elections in April.

A Cabinet meeting has been called for the afternoon, while the majority Socialists and the conservatives were later to hold party meetings to discuss the cutbacks.

The new hurdles Greece has to clear to avoid a default that could send shockwaves around the global economy dented sentiment in the markets Friday. Stocks were down all over Europe, with the benchmark index in Athens 1.8 percent lower in early afternoon trading.

While facing intense pressure abroad, Greece is having to deal with another strike. The country’s two biggest labor unions stopped railway, ferry and public transport schedules, and hospitals worked on skeleton staff while most public services were disrupted. Unions were planning protests in Athens and other cities around midday.

Prime Minister Papademos and heads of the three parties backing his government have already agreed to deep private sector wage cuts, civil service layoffs, and significant reductions in health, social security and military spending.

But the party leaders balked at demands for more cuts to already depleted pensions, later issuing nebulous assurances that a solution had been found.

“Unfortunately, the eurogroup did not take a final, positive decision,” Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said after Thursday’s talks in Brussels. “Many countries expressed objections, based on the fact that we did not fully complete the list of additional measures required to meet our targets for 2012.”

“The choice we face is one of sacrifice or even greater sacrifice _ on a scale that cannot be compared,” Venizelos added.

Once all the demands have been fulfilled, the eurozone will give Greece the green light to start implementing a separate bond swap deal with banks and other private investors designed to slice some euro100 billion ($132 billion) off Greece’s debt load.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Friday offered hope a deal could still be struck.

“I am confident that a solution will be reached next week as this is critically important for Greece and the Greek citizens first and foremost but also for the whole euro area,” he said during a visit to India. “I therefore call on the responsibility and the leadership of the Greek leaders and all members of the eurozone so that we can obtain this goal that is important for the euro area and indeed for the global economy.”

France’s central bank chief Christian Noyer also urged Greece to accept the “reasonable and indispensable” austerity plan.

“It’s really important that this situation comes to an end and gets wrapped up. Greece needs to do what other countries are doing, countries that have been in difficulty but are completely in line with the recovery plans,” Noyer said on Europe-1 radio Friday. “Greece has to accept all of this.”

But on the streets of Greece, the mood is grim, after two years of severe income losses, repeated tax hikes and retirement age increases that failed to signally improve the country’s finances. Unemployment is at a record high of 21 percent _ with more than a million people out of work _ while the economy is in its fifth year of recession and is expected to contract up to 5 percent in 2012.

The country’s politicians have taken a lot of criticism for the situation, and polls show the majority Socialists, elected in a 2009 landslide are now languishing at around 8 percent.

A Greek Socialist lawmaker resigned his seat Friday to protest the new austerity, a day after the country’s deputy labour ministry stepped down from his position for the same reason. But the resignation of Pavlos Stasinos will not affect the party balance in Parliament, as he will be replaced by another Socialist deputy.

“It is unacceptable that right now our politicians’ petty political and public relations maneuvering should be leading the country to bankruptcy,” respected Kathimerini daily said in an editorial. “The country is tumbling towards a cliff-edge, and a tough European establishment is putting out the view that Greece cannot be saved and lacks credible politicians. Our politicians back that view with their carryings-on.”

Ta Nea daily accused Greek politicians of “theatrics and shilly-shallying,” and urged lawmakers to back the new measures in the Parliamentary vote, tentatively planned for Sunday.

“Nobody can happily back the painful agreement with the troika,” it said in an editorial. “But neither can anyone shoulder the burden of the consequences, if the agreement is not completed.”

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Phone company Verizon Communications Inc. will challenge Netflix and start a video streaming service this year with Redbox and its DVD kiosks.

Verizon and Coinstar Inc., Redbox’s parent company, said Monday that the service will be national and available to non-Verizon customers as well. It adds another dimension to Verizon’s quest to become a force in home entertainment.

Unlike competing services from Amazon.com Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the new service will combine Internet delivery of movies with DVDs, the way Netflix does. Dish Network Corp. also offers a similar bundle through its Blockbuster subsidiary.

Details and pricing of the new plan weren’t announced.

Late last year, the companies were shopping around a $6-per-month offering that would give subscribers one DVD rental from Redbox per month as well as unlimited streaming of a certain selection of movies, according to a person briefed on the plan then. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity business card.

It’s not known whether the plan has changed since then, though the price is likely to be less than the $16-a-month minimum that Netflix subscribers have to pay for a combined DVD-by-mail and streaming plan.

Although consumers would pay less, Redbox’s inventory is limited to what’s in its kiosks, compared with Netflix’s library of more than 100,000 titles, including more obscure fare. Redbox customers will also have to go in person to pick up a disc, which saves the company mailing costs.

Getting an extensive library of streaming content to rival Netflix’s 20,000-plus titles will be expensive. The rising cost for streaming rights is the main reason that Netflix raised its U.S. prices by as much as 60 percent last year in a move that triggered a customer backlash.

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Swiss (SNBN) National Bank President Philipp Hildebrand will today answer lawmaker questions in Bern as he seeks to end a discussion over controversial currency purchases by his wife.

Everybody knows that January predicts the stock market’s direction for the year and that the best time to sell stocks is at their spring peak. And among stock market experts, it’s a sure bet that the market will soar in the year before an election.

But what passes for stock market wisdom is suspect when given a closer look. The most common error comes when people spot two events and assume that one causes the other.

And it drives economists, math geeks and plenty of money managers nuts.

“If you look at enough data in enough different ways, you’re going to find something that isn’t really true,” says Edward Keon, who leads a mathematics team at Prudential Financial.

The same seasonal patterns seem to pop up year after year. Some are valuable and some meaningless, Keon says _ like saying stocks tend to rise or fall depending on the month, the temperature in New York City or who wins the Super Bowl.

People “are simply being fooled by randomness,” says Burton Malkiel, professor of economics at Princeton University and author of the finance classic “A Random Walk Down Wall Street.”

Spend enough time digging through numbers and you’re bound to find some that always take the same path, he says. “But none can reliably predict the future.”

Here’s an examination of some of the oldest Wall Street aphorisms.

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The claim: As goes January, so goes the year.

The idea is that January works as a barometer for the stock market’s full-year performance: A strong first month often leads to a year of gains, and a weak one to a year of losses.

It comes from Yale Hirsch, father of the Stock Trader’s Almanac, and looks reliable. Since 1929, the calendar year has followed January’s lead 60 out of 83 times, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at Standard & Poor’s. That’s a .723 batting average.

The suggestion that January somehow directs the course of the next 11 months is what irks economists and investors, including Dan Greenhaus, chief market strategist at the brokerage BTIG.

Expecting to hear praise for January’s forecasting powers, Greenhaus attacked the idea on his blog Jan. 2, the day before U.S. markets opened for 2012. He took the S&P 500 index’s returns since 1950, including dividends, and found that the four months following January also appeared to work magic. When April is down, the next 12 months return a negative 0.2 percent. When April is up, the S&P 500 returns 12.8 percent. It’s a similar story with February, March and April. But why?

“It’s true that if January is up, the year is up most of the time,” he says. “But if you look at any month, you’ll find the market tends to be up over the next 12 months. And the reason is very simple: the market tends to be up.”

The S&P 500 has climbed in three out of every four years since 1950. Pick nearly any month in which stocks rose and most of the time you’ll find that the year was headed in the same direction.

But what if stocks fall in January? It doesn’t mean the next 11 months will follow. Sometimes, the stock market starts the year in a hole and digs its way out. In 1992, the S&P 500 dropped 2 percent in January, then ended the year with a modest gain of 4.5 percent.

“If you’re starting in the hole, then the 12-month period is starting in the hole,” Greenhaus says. “That should be intuitive. Instead it gets treated as some sort of prognostication tool. It’s just what happens.”

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The claim: Sell in May and go away.

Like a flock of migrating birds, the stock market tends to travel south or north depending on the season. It rises through the winter months and falls late in the spring. Investors struggle through the summer until November rolls around and the market picks up again.

“Sell in May and go away” is a well-worn saying, but the numbers seem to back it up. Since 1990, the three months starting in July have been the worst quarter for the S&P 500. Last year, the S&P hit its peak on April 29, then hit bottom Oct. 3, right on cue.

Even many skeptics think “sell in May” probably has something going for it _ but they can only guess why.

“It’s harder to debunk this one,” says Nick Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group.

The flow of money into retirement plans and mutual funds may have something to do with it. Colas says databases that track cash moving into stock funds show patterns similar to the stock market trend: A strong start that evaporates as the year progresses.

In the first four months of 2011, Americans added $13 billion to U.S. stock funds, according to the Investment Company Institute. But they pulled $6.5 billion in May and then began withdrawing much more. By the end of the year, retail investors had pulled $131.8 billion out of U.S. stock funds.

Some tie the summer sluggishness to vacation season. Trading desks are thinly staffed in the weeks before Labor Day. Fewer traders means a drop in trading volume, which makes it easier for markets to take bigger swings, often down.

Here’s where that explanation falls short. Traders return to their desks after Labor Day in September and trading picks up. But for all major stock indexes, September is historically the worst month of the year. Since 1950, it’s the only month in which the stock market has fallen more than it has risen.

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