First Quarter Earnings, First Quarter | featured news

While advertising continued to fall, The New York Times Company, which is repositioning itself for a digital age, said circulation revenue rose 6.5 percent in the first quarter.

The automaker, which continues to struggle overseas, posted first-quarter net income of $1.6 billion, beating Wall Street expectations.

Bank of America has reported a sharp rise in profits after it shed costs and set aside less money for bad loans. The bank reported first quarter net income of $2.3bn (£1.5bn), after making $328m in the same quarter a year ago.

Yahoo said its profit rose 36% as the struggling Internet pioneer showed signs of continuing its slow but steady rebound under Mayer. But its shares fell after-hours on signs of decay in sales of display ads.

Citigroup Inc reported a higher-than-expected 31 percent rise in first-quarter profit on Monday as it drew down loss reserves for mortgage loans, and revenue from its securities and investment banking business swelled.

Retail sales contracted in March for the second time in three months, a sign the American economy may have stumbled at the end of the first quarter.

Hewlett-Packard Co.'s first-quarter earnings declined 16% as the technology giant continued to see weaker sales in its core personal computer business, though adjusted profits beat the company's expectations.

JPMorgan Chase on Thursday formally revised its first-quarter financial results to show a lower profit, after deciding that traders at its main investment arm had overstated the value of certain derivatives.

Microsoft said Thursday that an accounting adjustment to reflect a weak online ad business led to its first quarterly loss in its 26 years as a public company. The software company had warned that it was taking a $6.2 billion charge because its 2007 purchase of online ad service aQuantive hasn't yielded the returns envisioned by management. The non-cash adjustment is something companies do when the value of their assets decline. Microsoft Corp. paid $6.3 billion for aQuantive, only to see rival Google Inc. expand its share of the online ad market.

The U.S. Postal Service on Thursday reported a $3.2 billion loss for the first quarter of 2012, $1 billion more than during the same period last year.