MEXICO CITY  - Three senior executives of JPMorgan Chase leaves. The media got the information from people familiar with the loss of at least 2.000 million for poor management of a portfolio of derivatives.

Ina Drew, who since 2005 has led the risk management unit, Achilles O. Macris, Chief Investment Office, and Javier Martín-Artajo,  general manager.

The firm’s chief executive, James Dimon, said the bank reacted badly to the so-called warning last month announcing that the agency had large trading losses in complex financial derivatives.

Dimon said the bank’s executives were “dead wrong” in public statements made in April, after being questioned for their actions on reports from the media.

“We got very defensive. And people began to justify everything we did. We said something that was completely wrong just four weeks,” Dimon said the program “Meet the Press” on NBC.

Dimon said Thursday that the bank had lost 2.000 million dollars or more for poor management of a portfolio of derivatives.

On Friday, Fitch Ratings downgraded the credit rating one notch from JPMorgan Chase to A+ from AA- following the announcement of the loss.

“Fitch believes that the size of the loss is manageable. That said, the magnitude of the loss and the evolution of these positions imply a lack of liquidity,” the agency said.

“It also raises questions concerning the risk appetite of JPMorgan, the framework for risk management, and monitoring practices, all key factors for the credit,” he added.

The rating agency also put JPMorgan in a negative light, implying that it would be a further reduction of the note in a period of six months.

NEW YORK  - JPMorgan Chase & Co, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, may take over the 2.000 billion dollars in losses by a hedging program that went wrong. But, analysts say it will take longer to restore the damage to its credibility as a risk manager.

JPMorgan shares fell 8% to 37.39 dollars in early trading market on Friday, a day after his office informed of major investment losses in market valuation of its loan portfolio synthetic.

“This action is valued because of the confidence investors have in the (management) JPM risk and part of that trust was lost yesterday,” Citi analysts wrote in a note to clients.

Bernstein analysts rated the loss as a “big blow to the credibility” to the lender, which prides itself on its strong risk management.

Citi cut its price target on the stock to $45 from $52. Nomura reduced its target to $50 from $55, while Goldman Sachs lowered to $48 from $50.

FBR Capital Markets downgraded its rating on the title by one notch to “equal to the market performance.”

JPMorgan gave away without reporting the financial crisis or a loss, and its strong balance sheet enabled him to acquire the investment bank Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual consumer bank when both collapsed in 2008.

The bank had 2.32 trillion in assets supported by 190.000 billion in investment of shareholders in late March.

Goldman Sachs, which reduced the target share price to $48 at JPMorgan, said that although the direct impact of the loss is manageable, the general implications are negative because they highlight the difficult operating environment and raise questions about regulatory scrutiny.

“To recover (credibility), we believe that JPM has to go further and explain to investors conceptually how this happened in such a large scale and the resulting changes to be done,” Citi analysts said.

FBR said that although the core business lines remained strong and intact, concerned about the potential risk that the credit derivatives portfolio represents for future earnings.

“Until the company can undo this portfolio, there is little clarity and a lot of uncertainty surrounding future earnings from JPMorgan,” FBR said in a note to clients.

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal jury was unable to agree Monday on a crucial issue in a case where Oracle accuses Google of copyright violation, and thus played down their find strength that depended Google technology from another company to develop its popular Android for wireless devices.

The stalemate that emerged in a court in San Francisco complicates the attempt to Oracle Corp., receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from Google, on the basis that the Internet search leader improperly copied parts of Android Java programming system.

Although the jury decided that Android violates some copyrights of Java, the five men and seven women on the jury had different positions on whether the acts of Google were permissible under the provision of “fair use” falling under the U.S. law.

The fair use provision allows some parts of a copyrighted work that can be used in other creative expressions without permission, such as books, movies and software.

With the issue of “fair use” pending, it appears that Oracle now has little hope of emerging from the trial with a clear victory.

Oracle, a maker of computer programming, has been asking for a maximum of $1 million in damages and an injunction to reschedule Google Android if they can not reach an agreement on licensing.

The federal district judge, William Alsup, on Monday informed counsel for both parties unless there is a verdict on fair use, there is “zero findings of copyright liability”.

The jury also found that Android violates nine lines of Java code, but that demand would not have possibly worth more than $150,000 in damages, based on previous statements made in the process.

Starbucks in Mexico will offer free downloads of apps from the App Store in cafes, in order to strengthen its “Team of the Week”.

The company said the launch of this campaign is for a change in image and design of the cards, which will be available starting this month in every chain.

Arturo Martinez of Starbucks said that “the incorporation of ‘apps’ to the selection of the Week program, seeks to complement the free entertainment for guests to enrich their experience in each of the stores. ”

The Shazam Encore will be the first under this program, which allows to immediately identify any song you are listening.

Also, when you send via iPhone or iPod Touch, information relating to the song and the artist, such as tours, recommendations or words of the song are made available.

“Selection of the Week” is a program in Mexico since 2009. With the aim of offering customers the ability to download different songs for free applications, they are updated each week through a redeemable code that is behind of each card.

NEW YORK – Facebook is intended to help the public to donate organs.

Its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg said users in the U.S. and the UK will be able to register as organ donors through links on the largest social networking site.

Zuckerberg said his friendship with the co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs , who received a liver transplant before dying last year, gave him the idea.

The executive of the giant social network announced the news on Tuesday on “Good Morning America”.

Some users of Facebook have already been registered as organ donors. Facebook is preparing a stock offering that is expected to be $5 million dollars.

The offer could raise the value of the company to $100 million.

NEW YORK – The manufacturer of tennis rackets, Prince Sports Inc., sought bankruptcy protection in the United States as a result of increased competition, accumulated debt and a decline in discretionary spending after the financial crisis caused a drop in sales.

The company, whose products have been used by leading players like Maria Sharapova, Patrick Rafter, Martina Navratilova and Gael Monfils, was founded in 1970 and also sells athletic footwear, apparel and accessories for sports like squash and racquetball.

Prince has changed hands several times in the last decade. Lincolnshire Management Inc. bought it from Benneton Group, parent of United Colors of Benetton, in 2003, and subsequently sold it to Nautic Partners in August 2007.

The company decided to start another process of selling in October 2010 and hired Robert W. Baird, who found nine potential investors.

This process of sale also was aborted when the company entered into negotiations with the three final participants who had paid a sum substantially less than the existing secured debt, Prince said in their presentation for bankruptcy.

Prince made a list of assets in the range of $50 to $100 million and said it has a secured debt of $65 million with Authentic Brands Group (ABG)-Prince LLC and an estimated $10.2 million in commercial debt with suppliers.

The company, which filed for protection under Chapter 11, could be left to ABG-Prince, which has most of its debt. ABG-Prince canceled the secured debt in exchange for 100% of new shares in the reorganized company, Prince said in their presentation for bankruptcy.

Prince said it will use the bankruptcy process to develop a more competitive business model.

“We hope to get out of this period as a more efficient and more competitive shoe brand within the market, to eliminate time constraints that have enabled the brand to reach its potential,” said Chief Executive Gordon Broggis in a statement.

With a handful of Apple employees in a small office, the firm has made a strong corporate strategy: it has prevented millions of dollars in taxes in California and 20 other states.

The company headquarters is in Cupertino, California, but they will be putting an office in Las Vegas, just 200 miles away, to collect and invest their profits. Apple evades state taxes because the income tax in California is 8.84%, while in Nevada is 0%, according to a note from The New York Times published Sunday in print.

The newspaper argues that the creation of that office in Reno is one of the many methods that Apple used to reduce tax payments throughout the world by billions of dollars each year.

Apple has also created subsidiaries in low tax areas, like Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands.

According to the article published Sunday, almost all large companies try to minimize their taxes and savings. Apple is especially attractive because its benefits are very high.

Wall Street analysts expect the firm could earn up to 45.600 million in its fiscal year, a record for any U.S. company.

The New York Times states that it is much easier for copyrighted firms (like Apple) and digital products to transfer their profits to low tax countries for groceries or car manufacturers.

“A downloaded application, unlike a car, you can sell from anywhere,” exemplifies the newspaper.

They added that in the past two years, 71 technology firms included in the stock market index Standard & Poor’s (including Apple, Google, Yahoo and Dell), published tax rates lower by one third to those of other companies within the index referral.

Without this kind of tactics, the payment of federal taxes in the U.S. firm would have been higher than reported last year ($2.4 million), according to a study by former Treasury Department economist, Martin A . Sullivan.

Last year, the company paid $3.3 billion in worldwide tax on profits of $34.2 billion, a rate of 9.8%. According to the newspaper, Apple does not indicate how much of that payments are made in America.

Apple responds

The newspaper said the firm pays a huge amount of taxes that help local, state and federal regulations.

According to research, in the first half of fiscal year of 2012, its U.S. operations have generated nearly $5 million dollars in federal income taxes and state, including income taxes withheld on income of employee actions.

“Apple has done all their business with the highest ethical standards, complying with applicable laws and accounting standards. We are very proud of the contributions from Apple,” the company said in a text to The New York Times on Sunday.

SAN FRANCISCO - Google on Thursday refuted the decision of the authorities of communication in the United States to impose a fine of $25,000.

According to authorities, Google broke the law to collect personal information transmitted via wireless networks and unsecured Wi-Fi, when photographing from 2007 to 2010 in several neighborhoods to the Street View maps system.

The government commission said that Google blocked the investigation conducted to determine whether the company violated federal law.

Google blames the commission to delay the investigation, which lasted 17 months.

In the letter, the company said it regularly responded to requests from the commission, but sometimes went from seven to 12 months without response.

Despite the objection, the giant said it decided to pay the fine to close the case.

Current Status 

Facebook, the social network created by Mark Zuckerberg, is betting that its IPO prospectus will occur in the second half of May. The company explained that after the first quarter of 2012, these are the most representative data:

• 901 million active users each month.
• 3.200 million comments and “likes” are made every day.
• 300 million photos are uploaded to the social network every day.
• 125.000 million “friends” are on the platform.
• 488 million active users each month via phone.

The company explained that their markets have higher growth rates in Brazil, India and the U.S.

Purchase Instagram

Facebook bought Instagram for millions of cash and stock. Instagram is an application to edit and share photos.

“This is an important step for Facebook because it is the first time we buy a product and a company with many users. We have no plans to do more of these acquisitions,” said Zuckerberg at the time, in the company’s official blog.

IBM Patent

The company acquired 750 patents of International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), in an effort to increase its intellectual property portfolio following a lawsuit filed by Yahoo for an undisclosed sum by the company.

Microsoft Patents

Facebook bought 650 Microsoft patents, for $550 million in cash.

These licenses had been recorded in the first instance by AOL, who sold part of its portfolio of IP at Microsoft last April 9, and for which the company founded by Bill Gates, would have paid 1.000 million dollars in cash.

“The agreement today with Microsoft represents an important acquisition for us. It is a significant step in creating a portfolio of IP to protect Facebook and its long-term interests,” said Ted Ullyot, legal representative of the company created by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004.

MEXICO CITY – Walmart de Mexico and Central America report positive results of the first quarter of 2012, with increases of 13% in EBITDA and 14% in net income. Thanks to a good performance in comparable store sales (more than a year in operation) and its aggressive expansion in sales floor.

Based on the figures for March, same store sales of the company that handles formats such as Suburbia, Bodega Aurrera, Superama and Sam’s Club, rose by about 5.6% and 2.6% in Mexico in Central America.

To Paola Sotelo, an analyst at Monex Casa de Bolsa, the revenue performance of the firm has benefited from the ongoing strategy of low prices, seasonal promotions and advanced higher consumer confidence, which has positively impacted traffic customers and the average ticket for the quarter.

“In Central America, we see a modest increase in comparable store sales because most of the units in 2011 he opened the second half of the year,” says the specialist market sector.

In the January-March quarter of 2012, Walmart of Mexico and Central America opened a total of 46 stores, representing an advance of about 11% in its expansion plan this year.

For Raquel Moscoso, an analyst at Casa de Bolsa Banorte-Ixe, the liquidation of inventories are lower than expected. It will result in a slight contraction in operating margins. Despite this, the survey reveals that EBITDA and operating income of the firm will increase by 13% and 14%, respectively, to settle at 9.150 and 7.176 pesos pesos in the same order.

Finally, the net income of the company directed by Scot Rank added 5.141 million pesos, which represents an increase of 14% compared to that obtained in the first quarter of 2011.

Walmart of Mexico and Central America in the retail sector operates in six countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua.

It has a variety of formats including discount stores (Bodega Aurrera Express, Family Pantry and Pali), supermarkets (Superama Paiz, Pantry Don Juan, La Union and Mas x Menos), warehouses (Bodega Aurrera, Mi Bodega Aurrera and Maxi Bodega), superstores (Walmart), membership wholesale clubs (Sam’s Club and ClubCo), apparel stores (Suburbia) and restaurants (Vips, El Porton and Ragazzi), to date, totaling 2.754 units.