A JPMorgan Chase & Co. shareholder proposal to split the bank's chairman and chief executive roles -- now both held by Jamie Dimon -- failed to win a majority's support Tuesday.

The proposal to split Dimon's jobs at the nation's largest bank won only 32.2% of the votes, according to a preliminary tally announced at JPMorgan's annual shareholder meeting in Tampa, Fla..

The marquee vote was seen as a referendum on Dimon's leadership and as a potential harbinger of growing shareholder power in corporate decision-making. A similar measure last year won 40% of shareholders' support.

The proposal wasn't binding, but Dimon nonetheless dodged what would have been a potential rebuke for one of the most influential leaders in corporate America and who has in recent years served as Wall Street's unofficial ambassador in Washington. Some analysts have speculated the proposal's victory would have hastened Dimon's departure from the bank, which under his leadership has reported record profits.

Even...

Spring was waiting in the wings longer than expected, but the recuperating housing market was enough to boost Home Depot Inc.’s first-quarter earnings above Wall Street’s expectations.

For the period ended May 5, the largest home-improvement chain in the world said its revenue soared 7.4% to $19.12 billion

Same-store sales at locations open more than a year got a 4.3% boost. Domestically, that gauge rose 4.8%, driven in part by double-digit lifts in most major markets in California.

The chain of 2,257 stores said profit swelled to $1.2 billion, from $1 billion a year earlier. Earnings per share boomed 22.1% to 83 cents, from 68 cents.

The company said it had finished rolling out a new strategy that allows customers to buy items online and pick them up in physical stores, a tactic that often results in more brick-and-mortar purchases.

QUIZ: How much do you know about the federal budget cuts?

An effort to improve online shopping meant that visits to Home Depot’s website...

WASHINGTON — Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook strongly defended the company's tax practices Tuesday at a Senate hearing highlighting the technology giant's use of Irish subsidiaries to shelter billions of dollars in income from U.S. taxes.

"We pay all the taxes we owe — every single dollar," Cook told the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

"We not only comply with the laws but we comply with the spirit of the laws," he said. "We don't depend on tax gimmicks."

Cook said the tax code "has not kept up with the digital age" and restricts the free movement of capital in comparison to the codes of other countries. He called for a "dramatic simplification of the corporate tax code," including lower tax rates and a "reasonable tax on foreign earnings."

He said Apple was "deeply committed to our country's welfare."

"We are proud to be an American company, and we are equally proud of our contributions to the U.S. economy," Cook said.

The panel's chairman, Sen....

Best Buy Co. reported a net loss and sliding sales for its first quarter, weakness that the electronics retailer blamed on the costs of its ongoing turnaround and calendar shifts that affected the key Super Bowl selling day.

Investors sent Best Buy stock down as much as 4.8% to $25.51 a share in early trading in New York.

For the quarter ended May 4, the Richfield, Minn. retailer said it suffered a loss of $81 million, or 24 cents a share, down from a profit a year earlier of $158 million, or 46 cents a share.

Stripping out restructuring costs -- including costs linked to the company’s sale last month of a 50% stake in a Best Buy Europe venture -- earnings per share rose to 36 cents. Wall Street had expected profit of 24 cents a share.  

Best Buy’s revenue for the quarter slid 9.6% to $9.38 billion, which the retailer attributed to difficult comparisons from an additional week during the same period in 2012. Without the week, the company’s first=quarter revenue would...

The thing about "vanity pricing" is … it does provide exposure. There’s nothing quite like planting a for-sale sign at the top of the price spectrum to draw notice.

With that in the mind, the nation’s real estate attention span -- albeit fleeting -- is currently drawn to a Greenwich, Conn., mansion that tops Realtor.com at $190,000 million. For that, “you get your” (could not resist the sales speak) 50.5 acres, 13,519-square-foot Victorian mansion, 1898 building date, 12 bedrooms, nine bathrooms, 10 fireplaces, elevator, waterfront and bragging rights.

The Los Angeles market experienced a similar event when Beverly House in Beverly Hills came on the market years ago at $165 million and raised a few eyebrows. But it did not sell.

More recently, the Mediterranean-style honeymoon spot of Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy went the lease route at $600,000 a month --  equally mind-blowing.

Grandest pool around? Malibu has it

Suzanne Saperstein’s nearby...

SACRAMENTO -- Mexican telecom billionaire Carlos Slim is punching back at an advocacy group that's been criticizing him across the country and on the steps of the California Capitol building.

Slim's Miami-based subsidiary, TracFone Wireless Inc., on Monday filed a complaint with California's political watchdog agency against an organization called Two Countries One Voice. The group has been protesting and pressing for legislation that could slow the expansion of TracFone's pre-paid cellphone network in the United States.

The accusation was filed with the California Fair Political Practices Commission, which regulates lobbying professionals. The commission declined to comment.

"The apparent goal of these protests and a related media and lobbying campaign is to generate adverse legislation and/or negatively influence regulatory decisions affecting TracFone, SimpleMobile and America Movil, which operate in an industry subject to extensive oversight by the state of California and local...

The F-35 fighter jet, a nearly $400-billion weapons program under development for more than a decade, hit a major milestone when it completed its first-ever vertical takeoff.

On Monday, aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp. released a video in which an F-35 lifted vertically like a helicopter and hovered above the tarmac.  

The Bethesda, Md., company said the test flight took place May 10 at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland.

The F-35’s vertical takeoff is a complex engineering feat that uses engine thrust vectoring by redirecting exhaust to the ground to achieve the vertical lift. This version of the plane is designed for the Marines.

In all, there are three versions of the F-35 being developed for the Pentagon.

Called the Joint Strike Fighter program, it is centered around a plan to develop one basic fighter plane that could -- with a few tweaks -- be used on runways and aircraft carriers, and hover like a helicopter for joint use by the Air Force, Navy and...

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details

WASHINGTON -- Apple Inc. has used an elaborate web of offshore subsidiaries to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. taxes on $44 billion in foreign income over the past four years, a Senate investigation has found.

Many of the tactics, such as cost-sharing arrangements, are common among large multinational corporations seeking to shift profits to countries with lower tax rates. The investigation did not find Apple violated any laws.

But three of its subsidiaries in Ireland claim to have no responsibility to pay income taxes to any country, according to a 40-page, bipartisan report released Monday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

One of those subsidiaries, Apple Operations International, which has no employees but reported $30 billion in income from 2009-2012, has not filed an income tax return in any country for the past five years, the investigation found.

“Apple wasn’t...

Baby boomers should be reviewing their retirement portfolios once a year and tweaking or re-balancing them, if necessary, says Delia Fernandez, a fee-only certified financial planner.

Fernandez is the founder of Fernandez Financial Advisory in Los Alamitos.

She had that suggestion and more for Marymount College math professor Patrick Webster, 63 and his wife Susie Martin, 54, who also works at Marymount.

GALLERY: Bank failures that drained deposit-insurance funds

The couple had managed to amass savings of more than $1 million, but they were still worried.

Webster and Martin had weathered four stock market contractions and were worried that their finances would not survive another one, but they had only talked about seeking financial advice and never acted on it.

Martin hadn't reviewed her investments since opening her retirement accounts with Marymount College several years ago.

Webster said he had a tendency "to become frozen when it comes to selling stocks and reinvesting," which, he...

On board the high-tech jet, which departed from Houston at 11 a.m. local time on Monday: Boeing Chief Executive W. James McNerney Jr. and Jeff Smisek, chief executive of United Continental Holdings Inc.

The voyage, dubbed United Flight 1, holds deep symbolic weight for Boeing and United, which is the only American carrier to fly the 787.

The Dreamliner is emerging from months of tinkering and testing after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on Jan. 16 ordered all of the planes parked due to concerns about its lithium-ion battery system.

Boeing has redesigned elements of the plane after incidents of overheating, including a fire. Analysts predict that the three-month grounding has cost the company millions of dollars.

Last month, the aviation agency gave the OK for the Dreamliner to return to service. Already, the jet...

Because everyone loves a cool map, Point2 Homes has crunched some Credit Suisse data to show where the “property millionaires” are distributed across the state and nation.

Last time we checked, mortgages were still available in the U.S., so "property millionaire" is something of a misnomer.  Despite the faulty logic, the tallies do paint a picture of where homes valued at $1 million and more are.

Grandest pool around? Malibu has it

Within the state, Los Angeles County has the most $1 million-plus homes followed by Orange, Santa Clara, San Francisco and San Mateo counties.

Coming in on top among states was California, followed by New York, Florida, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

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