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SV20/20 You need 20/20 vision in Silicon Valley. Get it with SiliconValley.com’s new focus on the 20 most influential people and 20 most powerful and innovative companies. Keep up with the valley’s movers and shakers at SiliconValley.com

By Steve Johnsonsjohnson@mercurynews.com

REDWOOD CITY — Re-porting a slump in its recently acquired hardware businesses,software giant Oracle on Thurs-day posted sales for its fi rst fi s-cal quarter that were lower than most analysts had predicted. Butits earnings were in line with Wall Street’s expectations.

The company said its sales for the three months ended Aug. 31

totaled $8.18 billion, down about2 percent from the same perioda year ago. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters on average had expected sales to be $8.4 billion.

However, Oracle’s quarterly$2.03 billion profi t was up 11 per-cent from the first quarter last year. It earned 41 cents a share — or 53 cents a share, excluding one-time financial items — which was what the analysts had predicted.

Given the company’s contin-

ued growth in software sales and orders for its hardware products, “the business is just extremely strong,” President and Chief Fi-nancial Offi cer Safra Catz told analysts during a conference call.

Trip Chowdhry, who tracks Oracle for Global Equities Re-search, also voiced enthusiasm about the company.

“What investors need to fo-cus on is, are they losing market share?” he asked. “Our answer is ‘no.’ And is their research-and de-velopment-pipeline strong? Yes.”

Before announcing its earn-

Hardware sales soft at OracleQ1 revenue slips about2% from year ago, but earnings are up 11%

CFO: BUSINESS ‘EXTREMELY STRONG’

Source: Bloomberg News BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

Oracle profit meets forecast, sales slipThe Redwood City software provider reported first-quarter earnings that matched estimates, but revenue fell as hardware sales dropped.

Sales Profit Stock$8.18 billion

Q1’13

Q1’12

Q2 Q3 Q40

$2.03 billion

Q1’12

Q1’13

Q2 S O N SD J F M A M J J AQ3 Q40

1

$35

30

25

2

$10

6

8

4

2

$3In billions In billions

2011 ’12

20

Thursday’sclose $32.26

Anybody who’s 17, or ever been17, knows that any suggestions yourparents make are nothing but lame.But every now and then, one of thoselame ideas turns into somethingsurprising and, OK, pretty cool.

When Shachi Kakkar’s dad, anelectrical engineer, started hintingaround that Shachi might want tocheck out the same field, Shachi’sfirst instinct was to run screaming from theroom.

“I don’t want to be an engineer,” he says hefirst thought. “I don’t want to be the stereo-type of a South Asian.”

But his father, Sunil Kakkar, is a persuasiveguy — and not all that bad — and so Shachi

decided to humor him. Besides, as a high school senior, he was starting to think about applying for college, and itwouldn’t hurt to have an internship or some similar experience to talk to the college admissions folks about. So hestarted talking to his dad about what it is he does: design and verification work on computer chips.

“I just briefly explained to himverification, right?” says Sunil Kakkar, who founded SKAK, a chip design and verification company. “I gave him a brief rundown of some of the challenges involved. He got the bigger picture of what verification is and what’s chal-

BRIDGINGTHE GAP

Young blogger helps unite generations of engineers, challenges public perception of people in profession

JOSIE LEPE/STAFF

Cupertino High School student Shachi Kakkar, 17, writes a blog, "Views from a YoungElectronic Engineer," that relates engineering to everyday life.

MIKE CASSIDYSILICON VALLEYDISPATCHES

By Jeremy C. Owensjowens@mercurynews.com

SAN FRANCISCO — Amid investor doubts brought on by social media’s decline, a Sili-con Valley consumer Internet stock debuted Thursday to an extremely warm reaction from Wall Street, which is expected to spark a wave of fresh initial pub-lic offerings.

Real estate information web-site Trulia raked in more than $100 million and then saw its stock shoot up more than 40 percent in its debut as a public

company Thursday, despite an IPO market that has slowed con-siderably since Facebook’s stock plummeted after the Menlo Park company’s record-breaking de-but.

Trulia’s success is “defi nitelygoing to help reopen the IPO window,” Sam Hamadeh of in-dependent data analysis fi rmPrivCo said Thursday, and Tru-lia CEO Pete Flint agreed, telling

‘OPENING BELL’ FOR OTHERS

As Trulia’s stocksoars, IPOs geta big lift as wellReal estate informationsite takes in more than$100 million in debut

By Peter SvenssonAssociated Press

NEW YORK — With a touch of geek whimsy, Google Maps warns anyone who seeks walking directions to Mordor — the land of evil in “The Lord of the Rings” — to use caution. “One does not simply walk into Mordor,” it says. Apple is finding this weekthat creating an alternative to Google Maps isn’t a simple walk, either.

Apple released an update to its iPhone and iPad operating system Wednesday that replaces Google Maps with Apple’s own application. Early upgraders are reporting that the new maps are less detailed, look weird and mis-place landmarks. It’s shaping up to be a rare setback for Apple.

“It’s a complete failure,” said Jeffrey Jorgensen. “It’s slower, its directions are poorer and its location data doesn’t seem tobe accurate. All around, it’s not quite there yet.”

Jorgensen, a user interface

MAPPING SOFTWARE

New maps applicationa rare flub for AppleReplacement to Google Maps said to be flawed, inaccurate at times

ONLINE EXTRAFor comprehensive technologycoverage, go to www.sv.com.

TECHNOLOGY

ASSOCIATED PRESS

This iPad screenshot shows the new Apple Maps app releasedWednesday. Early upgraders are reporting the new maps are less detailed, look weird and misplace landmarks.

ONLINE EXTRA What are houses selling for in your neighborhood? Check our database at www.mercurynews.com/real-estate

See TRULIA, Page 2

See APPLE, Page 2

See CASSIDY, Page 2

See ORACLE, Page 4

Bay Area News Group » Friday, September 21, 2012

WWW.MERCURYNEWS.COM » WWW.CONTRACOSTATIMES.COM » WWW.INSIDEBAYAREA.COM 001 SECTION C

designer for a San Francisco-based startup, began using Apple Maps months ago because Applemade it available early to people in its software development pro-gram. He said he finds himself re-lying on Google Maps running onhis wife’s Android phone instead.

The most-hyped feature ofthe new app is a “Flyby” modethat shows three-dimensional renderings of buildings and other features. It presents a convinc-ing depiction of the canyons ofManhattan, but has a hard timerendering bridges and highway overpasses, which tend to lookwobbly or partly collapsed.

The Apple app also has a tendency to judge landscapefeatures by their names. For instance, it marks the hulking Madison Square Garden arena in New York as green park space because of the word “Garden” in its name. The TD Garden football stadium in Boston gets the sametreatment.

Conversely,AppleMapsmarks“Airfield Gardens,” a farm andplant nursery in Dublin, Ireland,as an airfield. This prompted the country’s justice minister, AlanShatter, to warn pilots Thursdaynot to land there.

“Clearly the designation isnot only wrong but is danger-ously misleading in that it could result in a pilot, unfamiliar withthe area, in an emergency situa-tion and without other availableinformation, attempting a land-ing,” he said.

Marcus Thielking, the co-founder of mapping-app devel-oper Skobbler, said the lapsesof the Apple app are surprising,particularly since Apple pur-chases map data from an estab-lished provider, Tele Atlas.

“The combination of Apple and TomTom screwing up some-thing like this is very odd. Apple

is not the first and only companyusing Tele Atlas maps,” Thielk-ing said.

Tele Atlas is a subsidiary ofTomTom, a Dutch maker of navi-gation devices.

“We launched this new map service knowing it is a majorinitiative and we are just gettingstarted,” said Apple spokes-woman Trudy Muller. The app will work better the more peo-ple use it, she said, alluding to fact that users can report er-rors and omissions from withinthe app.

Google has been in the map-ping game for much longer, giv-ing it the benefi t of years of error reports to help shape its maps.

There’s been a Google Mapsapp on the iPhone since it was launched in 2007, but it’s al-ways come with the operatingsystem. Now that it’s gone fromthe list of “core” apps, users arefinding that it’s not available for download, either. Google saysits goal is to make Maps avail-able, but hasn’t said when that will be.

In the meantime, iPhoneand iPad owners can access maps.google.com through theirbrowser, said Google spokesmanNate Tyler. The browser ver-sion has fewer features but uses a comprehensive mapping data-base, he said.

Last year, Apple releasedanother software product thatmany regard as half-baked: the voice-controlled virtual assistant Siri. But Siri’s ability to — atleast sometimes — understandspoken queries was somethingmost users hadn’t met before,so they forgave its lapses. With Maps, Apple is replacing an app nearly every smartphone user is already familiar with.

User reaction on social mediahas been fierce. One Twitter userquipped that the lines of peoplequeuing up to buy the iPhone 5 on Friday will be shorter, because the buyers will be misled by thenew Maps.

APPLE

iPhone 5 next targetin patent battle

Samsung, in a movethat could escalate itspatent war with Apple,is considering addingthe iPhone 5 to a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple, according to a news report.

The action would betaken after the smart-phone’s launch Friday,according to The Wall Street Journal. It cited acourt filing that said the South Korean electronicsgiant expects to add thenew Apple device to a casethat is set for trial in 2014.

The case is separatefrom the one earlier this year that resultedin a U.S. federal court ordering Samsung to pay Apple more than $1billion in damages.

— Los Angeles Times

WEB SECURITY

Banks warned overpossible cyberattacks

A financial ser-vices security group iswarning about possible cyberattacks on banks, citing “recent credible intelligence.”

The group, the Finan-cial Services InformationSharing and Analysis Center, has raised its cy-ber threat level to “high”from “elevated,” saying there is potential forattacks that could makecompanies’ websitesunusable for customers.

JPMorgan Chaseand Bank of America have both acknowledged problems with theirwebsites this week, buthaven’t commented on the reasons.

GOOGLE

Closing on Facebook in display ad revenue

Google is expected to surpass Facebook in dis-play advertising revenue this year, beating all other competitors with a 15.4 percent share of the U.S. market, accord-ing to a closely followed research firm.

eMarketer saidThursday that it expects Google to generate $2.31 billion in revenue fromonline display ads — thegraphical advertise-ments people see on websites and account for the bulk of Google’srevenue.

The New York-based research firm predicts Facebook will hold 14.4 percent of the market this year with $2.16 bil-lion in U.S. revenue.

MICROSOFT

Explorer browser security fix is ready

Microsoft is releasingan update to its Internet Explorer browser to fixa security problem that could expose personal computers to hacking attacks.

A permanent repair to the security flaw will be released Friday. Mi-crosoft began offering atemporary patch for theproblem Wednesday on a part of its website set up for technical issues.

The permanentsolution to the problemwill be automaticallyinstalled on PCs runningon Microsoft’s Windows operating system if themachine is set up to re-ceive important updates.

— Associated Press

Tech ticker

lenging about it.”Yeah, he got it, Shachi says.

And something else, too.“It actually kind of intrigued

me, to my surprise,” says the17-year-old Shachi. “The wholeprocess kind of intrigued me.”

It was the sort of epiphanythat makes you want to tell theworld what you’ve discovered.And this being 2012, the wayyou tell the world is through ablog. Sunil Kakkar had a friendwho knew a friend who knewthe editors at EDN Network, awebsite that is one of the biblesfor electrical engineers look-ing for “deep-dive technicalcontent,” as the site itself likesto say.

And Shachi had an idea:The design and production ofa semiconductor is not sim-ply some inscrutable process,involving mind-numbing calcula-tions leading to decisions madeon a scale so small that they’rebeyond comprehension. It is alsoa very human process, a collec-tive effort by dedicated trouperswith a common goal and diverse expertise.

In fact, the process is a lot likea high school play, and Shachiknows something about those since he’s acted in a few at Cuper-tino High School.

Shachi wrote it down. The gist: A play has a director and ateam of actors with specific roles.It has technical people in thebackground. Lines are broken upinto chunks to be learned a littleat a time. The play is rehearsedagain and again to increase the

chances the play works right when the big day comes.

A verification team has a manager and a cast of engineers with specific roles. Sections of code are scrutinized. Engineers perform tests again and againto increase the chances the chipworks right on the big day.

Sunil Kakkar’s network got in front of EDN’s editors. Bothfather and son thought that just maybe EDN would publish the thing. It would be kind of a kick.

“I read his first piece,” says Suzanne Deffree, EDN’s online managing editor, “and I was like, ‘Would you like to do your ownblog?’ ”

“I was honestly shocked,”Shachi says.

But Deffree was serious. Yes,his own blog on EDN, www.edn.com, where Shachi has publishedthree more pieces relating engi-

neering to everyday life — andwhere his thoughts have sparked comments from the veteran engi-neers who read EDN.

It’s a wonderful accomplish-ment, but it’s something more.Much has been written about how hard it is to get young people interested in technical fields like electrical engineering. The reasons are many, but most agree that one factor is that kids don’t think they’re “cool.” But Shachiis in a position to change that perception.

“There is a lot more to it thannerds typing stuff on a com-puter,” he says of the highly tech-nical chore of making electronicswork. “That’s one of the biggest misperceptions that I try to clear up with my articles, that we’renot all nerds.”

It’s just the sort of perspective that EDN needs, says Deffree, as

the site pushes beyond the deep-dive stuff and into building onlinecommunities as well.

“When I came across this young man who so absolutelygets it, he gets what an engineer is about, he has that excitement,”she says, “when we find that, we want to celebrate that, and wewant to connect the establishedgeneration with the youngergeneration.”

And that’s a very good thing. Because when you’re 17 there are those rare occasions when some-thing your parents say makesabsolute sense. And invariablythose are the times when you andthe old folks are speaking aboutsomething you both love.

Contact Mike Cassidy atmcassidy@mercurynews.comor 408-920-5536. Follow him at Twitter.com/mikecassidy.

By Kim DixonReuters

WASHINGTON —Technology giants Hewlett-Packard and Microsoftused offshore units to shield billions of dollars from U.S.taxes by taking advantageof loopholes and stretchingthe limits of the tax code,a U.S. Senate panel saidThursday.

Describing tax avoidanceas rampant in the technol-ogy sector, the Senate’sPermanent Subcommitteeon Investigations said techcompanies used intellec-tual property, royalties and license fees in tax havenssuch as the Cayman Islands

to skirt U.S. taxes.The panel subpoenaed

internal documents fromthe companies and inter-viewed Microsoft and HP officials to compile its re-port, and uses them as case studies.

“The tax practices and gimmicks range from egre-gious to dubious validity,” Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the panel, said at a news conference.

Officials at HP and Mi-crosoft strongly denied anywrongdoing.

The investigative panel’sfindings came hours ahead of a hearing Thursday, atwhich Levin is slated to re-veal further details and to take testimony.

Levin, a Democrat, hasbeen investigating offshore tax evasion for years and

often issues reports calling attention to the issue. But Sen. Tom Coburn, the rank-ing Republican on the panel, also signed onto the report.

U.S. companies have about $1.5 trillion in profi tssitting offshore, and most say they are keeping it there to avoid U.S. tax. Of the top 10 companies with the big-gest offshore cash balances, five are in the technology sector.

“The high-tech industry is probably the No. 1 user of these offshore entities to transfer intellectual prop-erty,” Levin said.

The panel said Palo Alto-based Hewlett-Packardfunded U.S. operations with a stream of intercompany loans, using an exception in the law for short-term loans,to avoid billions of dollars in

taxes.A spokesman for HP said

it complies fully with tax law and said the IRS has never raised any concerns about the programs cited.

“We are disappointed to see what appears to be a politically motivated attack on one of America’s largest employers,” HP spokesman Michael Thacker said.

The committee said that from 2009 to 2011, Microsoft shifted $21 billion offshore, almost half its U.S. retail sales revenue, saving up to $4.5 billion in taxes on goods sold in the United States.

This was accomplished, the panel report said, by aggressive transfer pric-ing, where companies put values on intercompany movement of assets. Units are supposed to use a fair

market price to value such transfers, but critics say they are undervalued to minimize tax.

The report also said the software giant shifts royalty revenue to units in lower-tax nations such as Singa-pore and Ireland, avoiding billions of dollars of addi-tional taxes in the U.S.

In prepared testimony, Microsoft vice president fortax William Sample said all its units serve a purpose, though he acknowledges tax considerations come into play.

“While the primary ob-jective of our regional struc-ture is to improve our com-petitiveness and effi ciencyin each of the three regions, we evaluated available tax incentives,” also in its deci-sions.

Report: Tech ‘gimmicks’ duck taxesSenate panel saysbillions shielded byHP, Microsoft, more

Reuters, “This is an opening bell for other IPOs.”

Investors purchased 6million shares in Trulia for$17 apiece, higher than theoriginal $14 to $16 range the San Francisco company hadenvisioned, for a total takeof $102 million and a valua-tion of $448.4 million. When shares reached the NewYork Stock Exchange floorjust minutes after the mar-kets opened at 6:30 a.m. Pa-cific time, they were already priced 30 percent higher,at $22.10, and then rose ashigh as $25.20 before clos-ing at $24, an increase of41.2 percent.

Based on Trulia’s suc-cess, investors “will take another look (at consumer-focused IPOs), despite being burned so badly by

Facebook, by Pandora,by Zynga, by Groupon, by frankly almost everybody. Ihonestly think they will take at least a second look as op-posed to just hanging up thephone when underwriters call,” Hamadeh predicted.

Silicon Valley’s success-ful tech IPOs of 2012 — likePalo Alto Networks and Splunk — have mostly fo-cused on enterprise clients instead of consumers, butTrulia manages to offer both in one stock, as it offers in-formation on housing pricesand the overall market toreal estate professionals ona subscription basis, and the site also becomes a meetingground for sellers and buy-ers to interact.

“So many real estatebrokers at this point con-sider Trulia or Zillow to be a must-have that they really can’t do their jobs without that basic Trulia subscrip-tion,” Hamadeh, who does

not hold a position in Trulia, said Monday.

In addition to an enter-prise offering, Trulia has also been able to monetize its popular mobile offer-ing and strike a chord in that market, where other tech mainstays with bigger names, most notably Face-book, have faltered.

“Trulia is made for mo-bile, there’s nothing more mobile than house-hunt-ing, so if you’re looking at a house, you can see immedi-ately what open houses are nearby, you can easily click to text a broker to see if you can get a last-minute ap-pointment,” Hamadeh said, pointing out that 90 percent of the company’s revenues come from mobile.

Trulia, founded in 2005, competes with another re-cently public company, Se-attle-based Zillow, and both have profi ted from a revived housing market. Zillow de-

buted on Wall Street in July 2011 with an IPO valued at $20 a share, and the pricesoared in its first day, closing 79 percent higher; since then, the price has moved even higher, with shares closing Wednesday at $45.69.

The competition be-tween the two real estate information sources is not a friendly one, however, as Zillow sued Trulia last week, claiming the San Francisco company copied its patented formula for assessing a home’s value, a key offering for luring hom-eowners as consumers. Zil-low also put through a sec-ondary offering of its stock just two weeks ago, a movethat suggests Zillow is “try-ing to attract some atten-tion away from Trulia,” saidHamadeh, who also holds a law degree.

Trulia has increased its revenue almost 100 percent per year in the past two full

fiscal years, according to its IPO fi ling, rising from $10.3 million in 2009 to $19.8 mil-lion in 2010 to $38.5 million in 2011. The company is on pace for similar revenue growth again in 2012, with $29 million in revenue booked for the fi rst six months; however, it has not turned a profi t in that time,with losses as high as $7 million in 2009, and a loss of $7.6 million in the fi rst six months of this year putting it on pace to more than dou-ble that record in 2012.

Despite those fi nancials,Hamadeh’s fi rm says that the revenue — as well as Zillow’s rise — suggests Trulia’s true value lies at$33 a share, leading to a tech IPO that “underpriced and overdelivered,” a wel-come occurrence after so many disappointments.

Contact Jeremy C. Owens at 408-920-5876.

TruliaContinued from Page 1

ByMae AndersonAssociated Press

NEW YORK — Wal-Mart Storesis phasing out the sale of Amazon.com’s Kindle Fire tablet and Kindle e-readers, the second major retailer to stop offering the items in six months.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said Thursday the deci-sion was made as part of its over-all merchandising strategy to offer a broad assortment of products at low prices. Amazon has been selling lower-priced tablets at thin — if any — profit margins to boost sales of digital media like books and music from its online store. That makes it less attractive for major retail-ers to carry Kindles in their stores,particularly as online retailers such as Amazon.com become more of a threat for traditional brick-and-mortar stores.

Retailers are trying to fi ght a growing practice called “showroom-ing.” That’s when shoppers, armed

with smartphones, browse products in physical stores and then shop on-line for a better price.

The move echoes Target’s deci-sion to stop offering the Kindle in May following its own merchandisereview. And it comes ahead of the holiday season, which is crucial for retailers since they generate up to 40 percent of their annual revenue during the period. Tablets are ex-pected to be a popular gift this year, much like last year.

“Amazon is clearly becoming a more attractive consumer retail destination, so it was inevitable that Target or Wal-Mart would stop sell-ing the Kindle product,” said Morn-ingstar analyst R.J. Hottovy. “Theyperceive Amazon as a potential threat, and this is one way to neu-tralize that.”

Wal-Mart Stores will continue to sell a range of tablets and e-book readers, including Apple’s iPad, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and devices from Samsung, Sony and others.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sarah Spencer said the Bentonville, Ark., company will continue to sell its ex-isting inventory of Kindles until it is depleted.

Walmart outlets will stop selling KindlesLike Target, retailer fearsshoppers will visit stores,then buy for less online

Wal-Mart Stores will no longer sell Amazon.com'sKindle products, including theKindle Fire HD, left, making it thesecond majorchain to stopselling Amazondevices. Walmartoutlets will still sell Apple’s iPad and otherbrands.

GUS RUELAS/REUTERS

AppleContinued from Page 1

CassidyContinued from Page 1

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Source: Q1 2012 Omniture; Jan. 2012 Comscore.

BarometerFed. funds 0.15%

10-year note -0.01 1.77%

30-year bonds -0.02 2.95%

1-year T-bills 0.18%

30-yr fixed mort. 3.49%

THURSDAY DIVIDENDS DECLARED

DIVIDENDSPe- Stk of pay-

riod rate record ableIRREGULARWstn Asset Mortg Q .85 10-1 10-25INCREASEDConagra Foods Q .25 10-31 12-4Covidien plc Q .26 10-11 11-5Idacorp Inc Q .38 11-5 11-30Ingredion Inc Q .26 10-3 10-25Lennox Intl Q .20 10-4 10-15McDonald�s Q .77 12-3 12-17Texas Instruments Q .21 10-31 11-19Washington Tr Bcp Q .24 10-1 10-12Yum! Brands Inc Q .335 10-12 11-2SPECIALSycamore Networks 10.00 10-1 10-11REGULARAcme United Q .07 10-1 10-23Agilent Tech Inc Q .10 10-2 10-24Air Products Q .64 10-1 11-13Amer Water Works Q .25 11-16 12-3Belo Cp cl A&B Q .08 11-16 12-7Central Bancorp Q .05 10-5 10-19CVB Financial Cp Q .085 10-3 10-18Deltic Timber Cp Q .075 12-3 12-17Dynex Capital Q .29 10-5 10-31Golden Enterpr Q .0312 10-1 10-31Ind Bank Cp MA Q .21 10-1 10-12InterDigital Inc Q .10 10-10 10-24Jefferies Grp Q .075 10-15 11-15Oracle Corp Q .06 10-12 11-2Raytheon Co Q .50 10-3 11-1Sanderson Farms Q .17 10-2 10-16Saul Centers Q .36 10-17 10-31State Street Cp Q .24 10-1 10-12TJX Companies Q .115 11-8 11-29Waddell & Reed Q .25 10-11 11-1Wiley & Sons cl A&B Q .24 10-1 10-16Woodward Inc Q .08 11-19 12-3g- Payable in Canadian funds.

By Christopher S. Rugaber and Dave Carpenter

Associated PressWASHINGTON — A

jump in the stock marketand rising home prices arebringing many Americanscloser to regaining thewealth they lost in the re-cession.

U.S. household networth dipped in the April-June quarter, according toa Federal Reserve reportreleased Thursday. Butgains in stock and home eq-uity since the spring quar-ter ended have most likelyraised household wealth to within 5 percent of its peak before the recession.

The gains have gone toAmericans who managed to keep their homes and in-vested in stocks.

The increased wealthcould give many people andbusinesses the confidenceto step up spending andboost U.S. economic growthand job creation. That’s a key goal of the bond-buyingplan the Federal Reserve

unveiled last week. The Fedhopes to drive interest rates down and stock prices up.

Household net worth reflects the value of assetslike homes, bank accounts and stocks minus debts likemortgages and credit cards. It peaked before the reces-sion at $67.4 trillion.

Tumbling home andstock prices during therecession cost Americansnearly a quarter of their wealth. From a pre-reces-sion peak of $67.4 trillion in fall 2007, household wealth plummeted to $51.2 trillion in early 2009. But as of theApril-June quarter, it’sclimbed back to $62.7 tril-lion.

The Fed report alsofound that:

n Americans borrowedmore in the April-June quarter, marking the larg-est increase since the first quarter of 2008. Mortgagedebt declined again, as it has each quarter for more thanthree years. But Americansare taking on more student and auto loans.

n After-tax incomeshave inched up, makingdebts slightly easier to man-age. U.S. household debt equaled about 103 percentof after-tax income in theApril-June quarter. Thatwas down from 104 percent in the first quarter. The ra-tio had soared to 125 percent at the height of the housing bubble, up from about 90percent during the 1990s.

n Businesses have begun to spend some of the cashthey built up during the re-cession. Corporations held $1.73 trillion cash at the endof last quarter, down fromits near-peak of $1.75 tril-lion in the first quarter. If

the trend continues, it could signal that companies are investing and expanding more, which could lead to more hiring.

n State and local govern-ments borrowed more for the first time in six quarters.That suggests that steep spending cuts by those gov-ernments, which have cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, may slow.

Bill Hampel, chief econo-mist at the Credit Union National Association, cal-culates that Americans will add $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion to their net worth in the current July-September quarter. That would bring net worth to about 4.3 per-cent below its pre-recession peak.

“We’re not there yet, but we’re getting close,” Ham-pel said. “Households are rebuilding their capacity to spend.”

For now, many consum-ers are holding back in the face of still-sluggish jobgrowth and a high unem-ployment rate, now 8.1 per-cent. Consumer confi denceis at its lowest point since November, according to The Conference Board, a private research group.

Once consumer confi -dence “turns around, we could get a sustained period of pretty decent household spending,” Hampel said.

Dennis Fassett, a health care IT consultant in the Detroit area, has benefi ted from rebounding home and stock prices. Yet he remains anxious about the economy.

Four years ago, behind inhis retirement savings and worried about his job in the struggling auto industry, Fassett, 50, took a chanceandboughtrental real estate at reduced prices. Prices for his investment properties have since risen. And his retirement account is back within 10 percent of its pre-crash level. “The economy’s still looking funky,” Fassett said. “But I’m seeing signs of life.”

Americans regainingpre-recession wealthStock market, homeprices help rebuild assets of households

By Jerry HirschLos Angeles Times

LOSANGELES — Don’t get in a traffi c accident in a tiny Toyota Yaris. It has the most injuries per crash of any vehicle, according to an insurance industry study.

The Highway Loss Data Institute looked at insur-ance data for model year 2009 through 2011 vehiclesand found Yaris occupants filed personal injury claims 28.5 times for every 1,000 of the vehicles the industry insured.

That’s more than any other vehicle on the road and compares with the Porsche 911, which had thebest rate — only 4.5 injury claims for every 1,000 of the fancy sports car.

“Toyota is committed to achieving the highest standards for safety and isproud of its industry-lead-

ing 18 Toyota, Lexus and Scion models, including the Yaris, named 2012 ‘TopSafety Picks’ by the Insur-ance Institute for HighwaySafety,” Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons said.

The institute said itsresearch demonstrated that the vehicles with the highest injury claims tend to be small cars and are an important supplement to the crash tests conductedby federal safety regula-tors and the insurance in-dustry.

“Injury claims data show something that crash test results can’t, and that’s the role that ve-hicle size plays,” said Kim Hazelbaker, HLDI senior vice president. “In most crash tests, the advantage of greater size and weight is masked by using a fixedbarrier (in a test). As a re-sult, crash test results are

comparable only among similar vehicles.”

These numbers demon-strate which vehicles’ oc-cupants are the most likely to be injured in when it comes to real crashes, the institute said.

“We know that in thereal world, if all else isequal, a larger, heavier vehicle does a better job protecting occupants than a smaller, lighter one,” Ha-zelbaker said.

The Suzuki SX4, a small crossover, had the second-highest risk of injury to its occupants, posting 26.6 claims per 1,000 insured vehicle years.

Other vehicles that scored poorly by the in-stitute’s measurement in-cluded the Chevrolet Aveo, Mitsubishi Galant, Kia Rio,Nissan’s Versa and Sentra, Hyundai Accent and the Dodge Avenger.

Car accident injury claimshighest in smaller models

WASHINGTON (AP) — A trio of reports Thursday offered a reminder that the U.S. economy is struggling to grow and add jobs.

The number of people seeking unemploymentbenefits last week stayed near a level that signals only weak hiring in Sep-tember. Weekly applica-tions for unemploymentbenefits fell by only 3,000 last week to a seasonallyadjusted 382,000, the La-bor Department said. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, rose for the fifth straight week

to 377,750. Applications,which are a proxy for lay-offs, typically need to fall below 375,000 consistentlyto signal the job market is strong enough to lower un-employment.

In two other reports,manufacturing shrank for a fifth straight month inthe Philadelphia region, a sign that weaker global growth has hurt demand for American-made goods. And a measure of futureeconomy activity declined for the second time in three months.

The data followed a poor

month of hiring in August and the Federal Reserve’s move last week to launch new stimulus measures to give the hobbled recovery a jolt.

“There certainly doesn’t appear to be much improvement in the per-formance of the economy,”said Sam Bullard, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities. “Manufactur-ing continues to soften and decelerate. We shouldn’t expect to see substantial gains in hiring or output from manufacturers any time soon.”

Data on hiring in U.S. continue to be weak

Toyota’s Yarishad the highest rate of personalinjury claims, asurvey by the Highway Loss Data Institute reports. The Porsche 911 hadthe lowest rate.

KOJI SASAHARA/ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES

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TECHNOLOGY INDEXESMARKET REPORT OILS, METALS

Bed Bath & Beyond: The home-furnishing retailerreported second-quarter profit that trailed estimates.

ConAgra: The maker of Orville Redenbacher’s popcornraised its quarterly dividend and boosted its full-year profit forecast.

DreamWorks Animation: The maker of the “Shrek”films climbed after an analystupgraded the stock.

J.C. Penney: CEO Ron Johnson’sshowcase of the chain’s newstore layouts failed to inspire confidence in his remake of the110-year-old retailer.

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6/20 7/20 8/20 9/20

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C4 BAY AREA NEWS GROUP 111 FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

-7.41%Close: 1,440.10 Daily chg: -0.5%

ings, Oracle — which also issued a 6-cent-per-share dividend to shareholders — saw its stock price drop 52 cents, or nearly 2 per-cent, to $32.26 at the of-ficial close of trading. But its shares gained 8 cents in after-hours trading.

Oracle is one of the world’s biggest sellers of business-oriented databaseprograms and other soft-ware. It recently has bought several companies to bol-ster its offerings of Web-based software applicationsto help companies better manage their businesses. But it has faced growingcompetition from other software firms providing similar services.

In addition, Oracle has had only modest success with its hardware. Thoseproducts consist primarilyof server and storage equip-ment, which it acquired by buying Sun Microsystemslast year in a $7.4 billion deal the companies said was worth $5.6 billion after accounting for Sun’s debt and nearly $2 billion in cash reserves.

While Oracle’s softwaresales for the fi rst fi scalquarter totaled $5.7 billion, its hardware sales were just $1.35 billion. But ana-lyst Chowdhry said Oracle has been trying to shed some of the less desirable hardware it obtained from Sun and that its newer hardware products look promising.

A similar optimistic note

was issued this week by Jef-feries analyst Ross MacMil-lan, who said he has heard of “strong new customer in-terest” in Oracle’s Exadata product line, which com-bines hardware and soft-ware for high-performance data processing.

MacMillan added that he expects Oracle to un-veil an updated version of Exadata, which competes against products offered by Hewlett-Packard and IBM,

at the company’s Oracle Open World event in San Francisco later this month.

In recent months, Ora-cle has been battling withseveral corporate rivals in court.

On Aug. 2, German soft-ware rival SAP announced it will pay Oracle at least$426 million in damages and legal fees stemming from allegations that one of itssubsidiaries illegally used Oracle’s software.

But Oracle also has had some legal setbacks. On Aug. 1, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge ruled that it had violated a con-tract with Hewlett-Packard.And in May, a federal jury rejected most of Oracle’sclaims that Google had mis-used its software.

Contact Steve Johnsonat 408-920-5043. Followhim at Twitter.com/steveatmercnews.

By Paul Elias Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — A Taiwanese company was fined $500 million Thursday and its formerpresident and executivevice president were eachsentenced to three yearsin prison for their lead-ing roles in a global LCDscreen price-fixing con-spiracy.

The sentences handeddown Thursday are amongthe harshest penalties evergiven in an antitrust crimi-nal case. Still, the U.S. De-partment of Justice com-plained the punishments were not enough. Federalprosecutors demanded a$1 billion fine and a 10-year prison sentence for the ex-ecutives.

U.S. District JudgeSusan Illston said she re-jected the demand becauseA.U. Optronics has already paid out millions to settle aclass-action lawsuit andstill faced other lawsuits in the United States andaround the world.

She also said the twoexecutives — Hsuan BinChen and Hui Hsiung— didn’t deserve thelengthy prison sentences demanded by prosecutorsbecause they acted not for personal gain like someone

operating a Ponzi scheme but out of their sincere be-lief that they were aiding atroubled industry plaguedby overproduction and plummeting prices. Both men declined to addressthe court.

The company and seven other competitors whohave previously pleadedguilty were convicted ofsendingexecutivestoquar-terly meetings between 2001 and 2006 to hashout production levels andprices they would charge the world’s largest tech-nology companies for theirliquid display screens. The tech giants include com-panies such as Apple, DellComputers and a long listof television and computer makers. Many of the meet-ings’ agendas and conclu-sions were documentedand presented to the juryas evidence. The jury con-victed the company and men in March.

Prosecutors said the conspiracy artificially in-flated the cost of those products for consumersaround the world. One-third of the $74 billion inLCD screen sales impli-cated in the scheme were made by U.S. companies.

The judge is allowing the company to pays itsfine in four installments over the next year after its attorney Dennis Rior-dan pleaded for a paymentplan.

LCDmaker gets$500million fineFormer Taiwanese execs face prison for price-fixing

AT&T Inc 37.94 +.18AbtLab 69.86 +.51Accenture 65.19 -.25Altria 33.61 +.46Amazon 260.81 -.87AmExp 58.34 -.33AmIntlGrp 33.82 -.44Amgen 82.30 +.59Anadarko 72.01 -.54Apache 89.17 -.04AstraZen 47.96 -.15BCE g 44.05 +.09BkofAm 9.19 -.10BkMont g 59.68 -.09BkNova g 54.77 -.15BarrickG 42.46 -.28BerkHa A 133,816 +516BerkH B 89.33 +.38BiogenIdc 156.06 +1.02Boeing 69.85 -.05BrMySq 33.08 +.18CVS Care 47.81 +.10CdnNRy g 89.59 -4.40CdnNRs gs 32.81 -.04CapOne 58.05 +.08

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Accuray 6.90 +.31AdobeSy 34.53 +1.41AMD 3.59 -.07Affymetrix 4.21 -.11Agilent 39.23 -.65AlignTech 36.52 -.51AlteraCp lf 36.84 -.25

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eBay 50.08 -.318x8 Inc 6.61 +.04ElectArts 13.48 -.45Equinix 195.22 -2.67Facebook n 22.59 -.70

Flextrn 6.17 -.07FrankRes 125.35 -.85GeronCp 1.71 +.01GileadSci 67.32 +.11GluMobile 5.05 -.05Google 728.12 +.62HewlettP 17.76 -.34ImpaxLabs 25.98 +.18Incyte 19.23 +.28Infinera 5.72 -.10Informat 36.43 -.61IntgDv 6.15 -.13Intel 23.18 +.03Intersil 9.03 -.06Intuit 58.82 +.19JDS Uniph 13.03 -.16JnprNtwk 18.58 -.30KLA Tnc 47.59 -.84LSI Corp 7.43 -.13

LamResrch 32.64 -.21

LinearTch 33.07 +.07LockhdM 91.18 -1.06MIPS Tech 7.38 +.12MaximIntg 26.93 -.58McKesson 86.22 +.74MicronT 6.45 -.20

NetApp 35.51 -.23Netflix 58.74 +1.70Nvidia 13.61 -.10OCZ Tech 4.30 +.03OmniVisn 15.63 -.56OnyxPh 85.16 -.66OpenTble h 45.53 -1.34Oracle 32.26 -.52PDL Bio 7.60 -.05PG&E Cp 42.65 +.11PMC Sra 6.10 -.10Pandora 10.58 ...Polycom 11.44 -.05Rambus 4.94 -.12RobtHalf 26.51 -.41RossStrs s 67.06 +1.36

Rovi Corp 15.74 -.16Safeway 16.40 -.06Salesforce 156.02 -1.96SanDisk 45.95 -.23Schwab 13.44 -.21SciClone 5.54 +.03SeagateT 30.02 +.55SilicnImg 4.76 -.22StemCells 2.01 -.01Symantec 18.90 -.04TeslaMot 30.90 -.15ThrshdPhm 7.42 -.36TibcoSft 29.86 -.61TiVo Inc 9.72 +.03TrimbleN 49.43 -.94UnwiredP 1.96 +.11VarianMed 61.24 -.46VeriFone 31.77 -.55Verisign 47.29 +.04Vivus 23.72 -.56VMware 99.75 +.50WellsFargo 35.20 -.05Xilinx 34.95 -.12Yahoo 15.79 -.07Yelp n 26.31 +.60

Frankfurt 7,389.49 -.02 +25.28London 5,854.64 -.57 +5.07Hong Kong 20,590.92 -1.20 +11.70Paris 3,509.92 -.62 +11.08Japan 9,086.98 -1.57 +7.47

Britain 1.6211 1.6230 .6168 .6161China .1586 .1585 6.3062 6.3108Euro 1.2967 1.3063 .7712 .7656Japan .012778 .012756 78.26 78.39Mexico .077702 .077941 12.8698 12.8302

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