Gbc Bancorp

When a group of stocks has been massacred for almost two months, does a one-day rally spell the end of the bad times? That was the question flying around bank stocks Tuesday as the sector surged 7% following Alan Greenspan's hint late last week that the Federal Reserve Board might cut interest rates. Banks enjoyed one of their few genuine rallies since dropping into a tailspin seven weeks ago. The only major group with a bigger percentage gain Tuesday was technology at 8.6%.

Crash Case Reveals Large GM Settlements General Motors Corp. has paid out at least $495 million -- an average of more than $1.6 million per case -- to settle lawsuits brought by victims of crashes involving a popular line of pickups. Revelation of the payouts came last week when U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy in Montana released an exhibit in a case brought by the estate of a family killed in an accident.

Not long ago there would have been little reason for Cathay General Bancorp in Los Angeles' Chinatown to acquire a one-branch, struggling Chinese American bank in New Jersey. It was a matter of first things first. Starting in 1999, Cathay sought to expand by targeting the growing Chinese American population in New York, buying other banks and opening new branches in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.

Boeing Co. said Wednesday that its first-quarter profit fell 23% as a 40-day strike by engineers slashed production, but the decline wasn't as severe as investors had expected. Profit from operations dropped to $359 million, or 41 cents a share, from $469 million, or 50 cents, a year ago, beating the 35-cent average estimate of analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial. Sales fell 31% to $9.91 billion.

When Judith Nelson graduated from law school in 1965, women made up only 4% of her graduating class. There were even fewer female partners at law firms. And there was a prevailing attitude that certain jobs were "women's work"--and law wasn't one of them. Now Nelson is among a small but growing number of women who have made it to the top ranks of California's biggest corporations. Women may still meet resistance in striving to make it into upper ranks, but many believe that the tide is turning.

This directory lists more than half of the publicly held businesses headquartered in California. Generally, we have included the companies that did better in the major performance categories of this section, plus as many Southern California companies as space allowed. For a complete list of California companies on the World Wide Web, see The Times 100 section of the Los Angeles Times Web site, http://www.latimes.