1st Quarter

Tekelec, a Calabasas maker of equipment that tests telecommunications products, said its first-quarter profit rose 13% from a year earlier on a 36% jump in revenue. In the quarter that ended March 31, Tekelec's net income climbed to $1.24 million from $1.1 million, and its revenue rose to $9.12 million from $6.73 million. Tekelec said that U.S. orders for its equipment were lower than expected in the first quarter, but that international demand remained strong. Tekelec said its profit gain was limited because of new-product costs and higher engineering, marketing and customer-service spending needed to support its increased client base.

For a while, J.C. Penney and Best Buy seemed to be doppelgangers. The two retailers struggled with intensifying competition after years of comfortable stagnation. Beset by Wall Street skepticism and shaky consumer loyalty, each made sweeping attempts at a turnaround. Both removed their controversial chief executives. But as the companies prepare to reveal first-quarter earnings this month, their roads may be diverging: Best Buy's results are expected to show a continuing recovery while J.C. Penney's are forecast to be dismal.

Times Mirror Co. said Tuesday that its first-quarter profit declined 8% to $68.8 million but noted that the year-ago profit included a gain from the sale of assets. Excluding that one-time gain and interest expenses, the company said its pretax operating profit rose 9%. Times Mirror, which publishes the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, the Baltimore Sun and other newspapers, said operating profit rose to $129.6 million in part because of substantially increased earnings from its newspaper publishing and cable television operations.

SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc.'s first-quarter earnings report was seen by some as an early test of Marissa Mayer's ability to turn around the troubled Internet company. Investors now seem to be worried Mayer might not pass that test. Shares that have surged more than 50% since Mayer took over Yahoo in July plunged more than 4% to $22.78 in extended trading Tuesday after the company reported that its display advertising business had suffered declining revenue for the second straight quarter.

Strategic Mortgage Investments, a real estate investment trust that buys home mortgage loans, said its earnings dropped 39% to $1.8 million in the first quarter that ended March 31 from the year-earlier period. The Glendale company said results were affected by rising interest rates. Strategic Mortgage said the rates at which it borrows increased 2% in the quarter to 9.8%.

Alpharel said it narrowed its loss to $2.2 million in the first quarter that ended March 31 from $3.7 million a year earlier. The Camarillo company, which makes computer data storage devices, said its sales rose to $1.2 million from $628,000 a year earlier. Alpharel added that its operating expenses fell $1.5 million in the quarter from a year earlier.

APSB Bancorp, the North Hollywood holding company for American Pacific State Bank, said its first-quarter profit rose 22% from a year earlier, to $371,000 from $304,000. APSB, which is a major producer of federal Small Business Administration loans, attributed the gain to "solid" demand for loans, cost controls and higher interest margins, which is the difference between the interest that APSB earns on loans and the interest it pays for deposits. The bank said its assets as of March 31 totaled $176 million, up 22% from $144 million a year ago.

Bank of Encino, a single-office bank that caters to medium-sized businesses and wealthy individuals, said its first-quarter profit soared to $176,296 from $33,057 a year earlier. The bank, which was organized in September, 1986, said its assets as of March 31 totaled $47.9 million, up 24% from $38.6 million a year earlier. Bank of Encino's deposits rose 25% to $42.2 million from $33.7 million.

Semtech, a Newbury Park maker of semiconductors, said its fiscal first-quarter profit tumbled 61% from a year earlier on a 7% decline in sales. In the three months ended April 30, Semtech's net income dropped to $247,000 from $632,000 a year earlier, while its sales fell to $4.63 million from $4.99 million. Semtech's results have dipped in recent quarters in part because of flat demand for semiconductors generally. But the manufacturer noted that its latest results showed a slight improvement from the fourth quarter of its fiscal year ended Jan. 31, when it earned $220,000.

House of Fabrics said its first-quarter profit tumbled 33% from a year earlier despite a 6% increase in sales. The Sherman Oaks operator of 653 fabric stores nationwide said net income in the three months that ended April 30 dropped to $1.34 million from $2 million a year earlier. Sales climbed to $79.5 million from $75 million. House of Fabrics blamed the earnings drop on higher advertising and discount promotions aimed at boosting sales; the early date of Easter this year, which reduced the number of pre-Easter selling days, and bad weather in certain regions that slowed sales in February and March.

WASHINGTON - The American economy grew at a sluggish rate in the first quarter, stirring more doubts about the strength of the recovery and the outlook for jobs in coming months. The economy expanded at a lackluster 2.2% annual rate in the first three months of the year, down from a 3% pace in the fourth quarter of last year, the Commerce Department said Friday. Most analysts were expecting the gross domestic product - the total value of goods and services produced in the U.S. - to increase at a 2.6% rate or more in the January-March period.

Rising gas prices are forcing many shoppers to cut back on shopping trips to Wal-Mart, adding another challenge for the world's largest retailer as it tries to reverse a prolonged slump in U.S. sales. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. reported Tuesday that its fiscal first-quarter profit rose 3%, ahead of Wall Street expectations, but said an important measure of sales fell for the eighth quarter in a row. Sales at U.S. stores open at least a year — called comparable-store sales and considered an important barometer of a retailer's health because it excludes store openings and closings — fell 1.1% compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. reported a flat first-quarter profit Thursday as revenue from its huge international operations was hurt by the stronger dollar. The world's largest retailer earned $3.02 billion, or 77 cents a share, for the period ended April 30. That was flat from a year earlier. Revenue fell 0.6% to $93.47 billion. The results met the expectations of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, who projected profit of 77 cents a share on revenue of $96.37 billion.

American International Group Inc. posted a first-quarter loss Thursday of $4.35 billion, down from a $7.81-billion loss a year earlier -- a rare moment of good news for a company that has been beleaguered by poor performance and public outrage in recent months.

At 50 years old, Barbie is still delivering for Mattel Inc. But the doll can't do it all herself. Although Barbie sales were up 18% in the U.S. during the first quarter of the year, the El Segundo toy maker on Friday reported a net loss of $51 million, or 14 cents a share, compared with a loss of $46.6 million, or 13 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter.

Intel Corp. may report a loss in the first quarter, breaking a more than 21-year run of profitability, Chief Executive Paul Otellini told employees. "We are not going to wake up in six months with everything rosy again," Otellini wrote last week in an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg News. After 87 quarters of profit, the first quarter is "too close to call," the memo said. Slumping demand for personal computers has forced Intel to run its factories below capacity, making them less profitable.

Safeway Inc.'s first-quarter profit rose 22% with the nation's second-largest grocer off to its fastest start in six years, but management said Thursday that it was too early to raise earnings projections for the rest of 2007. The Pleasanton, Calif.-based company made $174.4 million, or 39 cents a share, during the three months that ended March 24, compared with $142.9 million, or 32 cents, a year earlier.

Levi Strauss & Co.'s fiscal first-quarter profit rose 61%, providing the latest sign that the long-suffering jeans maker is finally on the mend. The company said Tuesday that it earned $86.6 million during the three months that ended Feb. 25 compared with net income of $53.8 million in the year-earlier period. San Francisco-based Levi's is privately held but still discloses its financial results because some of its debt is publicly traded. First-quarter revenue rose 7% to $1.