But the results beat analyst forecasts, and the company raised its guidance for the year.

Gap said its net income was $233 million, or 47 cents per share. That’s a penny above what analysts expected. Its earnings per share rose from 40 cents in last year’s first quarter because the company had 16 percent fewer shares outstanding quick cash.

Gap’s quarterly revenue rose 6 percent to $3.49 billion, topping analysts’ average forecast for $3.46 billion.

And revenue from stores open at least a year, which is an important gauge of retailers’ health, rose 4 percent.

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Late Thursday, the social media giant announced the final price for the offering was set at $38 (U.S.) per share. That gives the company a market capitalization of more than $100 billion (U.S.), bigger than McDonald

“We were born out of a crisis, and that crisis is essentially winding down,” said Roni Chambers, executive director of the Go! Network.

The nonprofit, which has gathered downtown every Tuesday morning since early 2009, will hold its final meeting June 26.

Chambers announced the closing to approximately 100 members at the close of Tuesday’s meeting.

The St. Louis unemployment rate was 8.9 percent and headed for a peak of 10.4 percent when the Go! Network was launched three years ago by the St. Patrick Center with support from Anheuser-Busch InBev and other corporate sponsors.

Local unemployment currently stands at 8.1 percent.

The St. Patrick Center withdrew its financial backing in 2010, saying the program directed funds away from the charity’s core mission of advocating for the homeless.

Chambers, a former Anheuser-Busch human resources executive, then assumed leadership along with businessman David Greenwalt. In addition to serving as executive director, she also provided funding for the organization, which continued to meet at the St. Patrick Center.

The Go! Network served more than 4,300 unemployed St. Louisans over the past three years small personal loans. The group’s “landing rate” — the number of people finding new employment — topped 80 percent.

During her tenure, Chambers said she’s seen slow signs of economic improvement locally. The mass layoffs that in the early days overflowed the St. Patrick auditorium have turned into a trickle of occasional job loss. And the average length of time it is taking members to gain new jobs has shrunk from a year to three to four months.

The Go! Network has adjusted accordingly. After focusing on résumé building and interview skills at the outset, the organization gradually moved toward preparing its members — many laid off from positions they’d held for decades — for 21st-century job opportunities

“We’re really a flat world now. We’re not constricted by borders or states or companies,” Chambers explained Tuesday. “Employers are now playing in a social media space dominated by LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Our job was to teach people to maneuver through it.”

As for her future, Chambers said she plans to dust off her résumé, tap the network she’s developed and ’start looking for a job.”

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President Karolos Papoulias met with the heads of the conservative New Democracy, socialist PASOK and Democratic Left parties Monday in the eighth day of talks to resolve the deadlock.

The leaders said the president had suggested creating a government of technocrats or “personalities,” and will convene another meeting with the heads of more parties Tuesday to seek support.

If no deal can be reached, elections must be called for next month. The political uncertainty has roiled European markets and left Greece’s continued participation in the euro in serious doubt.

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European stocks have lost about 15 percent since mid-March. Renewed worries about the region’s long-running debt crisis have rattled markets. So it might look like a chance to buy cheap.

The trouble, money managers say, is that nobody knows when the crisis there will end. Most of them predict it will get worse, perhaps far worse, before it gets better.

“You can’t pick the bottom,” says Martin Jansen, lead manager for international equities at ING Investment Management U.S. “And if things get worse in Europe, today’s cheap won’t look so cheap anymore.”

To hear Jansen and other money managers tell it, a rule for shopping applies for investing: Not everything that goes on sale is a bargain.

If Greece drops out of the 17-country euro currency group this year, as analysts worry it will, it could spread havoc throughout the financial system. And Europe’s underlying problems _ slumping economies, deep debt burdens and ever-rising interest rates _ could take years to fix.

That doesn’t mean it’s time to sell everything connected to Europe. The best approach, fund managers say, is to divide the continent into struggling countries and stronger ones.

Investors who take this approach keep clear of Greek banks but favor German giants. All European markets could get hammered in a panic, but stocks in the stronger countries stand a better chance of bouncing back months, or maybe years, later.

“Put it this way: Are European markets a screaming buy?” Jansen says. “No, right now it’s time to be cautious, time to be selective.”

Some questions and answers:

Q: Which European countries are in better shape?

Among the 17 countries that use the euro currency, Germany is an outlier. It has the largest economy in Europe and the fourth-largest in the world. But it’s not just Germany’s size that sets it apart. Key measures of the German economy make it look as if the country broke away from the continent.

Unemployment across the euro countries has hit 10.9 percent, with Spain and Greece above 20 percent. Eight of them are in recession. Borrowing costs for deeply indebted countries hover near what economists consider unsustainable levels. Spain and Italy have to pay slightly less than 6 percent to borrow for 10 years.

By contrast, Germany’s unemployment rate is 6.8 percent. Economists expect the economy to expand nearly 1 percent this year. And Germany is a bond-market darling, borrowing for 10 years at just 1.5 percent.

Sean Lynch, Wells Fargo’s global investment strategist, says his firm is leery of European stocks, except when it comes to Germany. In money manager-speak, Wells Fargo’s stock funds are “underweight” Europe, but “overweight” Germany.

“We need to stop thinking of Europe as one entity,” Lynch says. “We like Germany. Countries in the northern part of Europe seem to be on much better footing.” He mentions Sweden and Norway, which don’t use the euro.

Q: But companies in Germany sell to customers in Portugal, Spain and other shrinking economies. Isn’t everyone on the same troubled ship here?

German companies do depend on customers elsewhere in Europe fast payday loan. That’s why the next step for bargain-hunters is to find those companies in stable European countries that lean on customers in faster-growing markets across Asia and Africa or even the U.S.

For some money managers, German car makers fit the bill. Volkswagen, for instance, sold a record 8 million cars last year, vaulting to the No. 2 spot worldwide, behind General Motors.

German drivers bought one of every four Volkswagens, but drivers in South America and Asia bought slightly more. Sales to India doubled. And VW stock has a 2.4 percent dividend yield.

RidgeWorth Investments’ international equity fund has 14 percent of its money in German stocks, including Volkswagen and Adidas. Chad Deakins, the manager, likes Adidas for its far-reaching customer base. The company sells nearly a quarter of its shoes and clothes to the U.S. and Canada, and another 10 percent each go to Latin America and China.

At the end of March, the RidgeWorth fund held stocks from across Europe but nothing from the hardest-hit countries, Greece, Portugal and Ireland. It had 12 percent of its fund in France and 4 percent in Sweden.

“There’s not going to be a quick fix to Europe,” Deakins says. “For value investors, it’s a game of patience. You buy high-quality companies and wait it out.”

Q: So the idea is that you buy and hold till things clear up. When will that be?

Good question. By the looks of it, not anytime soon. Daily news has alternated between reassuring and worrying. Spain nationalized Bankia, one of the country’s largest banks. Some cheered the move, while others warned it could burden the government with more debt.

An election last weekend in Greece gave no political party enough votes to form a government, fueling speculation that Greece would miss a debt payment and maybe drop the euro currency. An election in France brought in a president who had pledged to scale back budget-cutting efforts across Europe and push for economic growth.

How long till it’s over? An informal poll of five money managers yielded results from “I wouldn’t try to guess” to “Who knows?” Jansen of ING says that the crisis could go on for 10 years.

Q: Why should I care? I’m not invested in Europe.

Not so. It’s safe to say that if you own a stock fund, you’re exposed to Europe. One vehicle of choice for 401(k) investors is the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, a collection of large, publicly traded U.S. corporations. S&P estimates that the 500 companies in the index get 14 percent of their revenue from Europe. Overall, nearly half of revenue comes from abroad.

Some well-known U.S. companies lean heavily on Europe, according to data from Howard Silverblatt, S&P’s senior index analyst. McDonald’s and Kraft Foods get roughly a third of revenue from Europe. For health care behemoths Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer, the region counts for a quarter.

Q: So what’s the lesson there? I’m not supposed to sell my S&P fund, right?

That’s the bad news about the troubled ship of Europe: We’re on it, too.

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Roberts Hotels Atlanta LLC and Roberts Hotels Shreveport LLC both filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court in St. Louis today. The hotels each list between $1 million and $10 million in estimated assets and between $10 million and $50 million in liabilities.

The hotels, which both operate under the Clarion flag, are located at 1775 Parkway Place in Marietta, Ga., in the Atlanta metro area, and at 1419 E. 70th, Shreveport, La.

On Monday, another Roberts Cos. hotel, located in Tampa, Fla., filed for bankruptcy. Six of Roberts Cos.’ hotels have filed for bankruptcy since December no fax payday loans.

The hotel bankruptcies are tied to a lawsuit Bank of America filed in April against brothers Michael and Steven Roberts, co-owners of Roberts Cos. In the suit, Bank of America alleges the brothers are in default on a loan connected to multi-million dollar renovations to hotels they own outside of Missouri, and owe more than $34 million.

The Roberts brothers said they planned to seek bankruptcy protection for the hotels named in the Bank of America lawsuit. The Roberts’ hotels included in the Bank of America suit are located in Tampa, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Shreveport, La., and Spartanburg, S.C.

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The company gave no explanation for the decision by Andrew Moss, who had been CEO since 2007, to step down a week after shareholders voted against the company’s decisions on executive pay and bonuses.

At Aviva’s annual general meeting a week ago, 823 million votes were recorded against the pay plan, or remuneration report, compared to 670 million in favor. Another 152 million votes abstained.

Shareholders were unhappy at a 33 percent drop in the value of shares in the last year.

Aviva shares were up 4.9 percent at 317 pence in early trading in London.

“We suspect that the latest batch of negative headlines over the Remuneration Report at the AGM was the last straw and Moss had to go,” said Barrie Cornes, analyst at Panmure Gordon & Co. “Few will shed any tears given his handling of the business over the last few years which have seen the shares massively underperform the sector.”

Aviva said its chairman-designate, John McFarlane, would step in as interim CEO and “will immediately assume the task of improving the delivery of shareholder value by the group.”

“He does not underestimate the significance of the challenge but is optimistic of the right result,” Aviva said Online payday loans.

In recent weeks, David Brennan has announced his resignation as CEO of drug maker AstraZeneca and Sly Bailey has decided to leave newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror at the end of the year. Both companies have disappointed investors with declining share prices _ down 15 percent in a year at AstraZeneca and 39 percent at Trinity Mirror.

Barclays was also stung by a drop in shareholder support for the bank’s executive compensation. Seventy-three percent of the vote supported Barclays’ plan, down from 90 percent a year earlier.

Chief Executive Bob Diamond was awarded pay, bonus and deferred shares worth 17.7 million pounds ($28.7 million at the current exchange rate) for 2011, a year in which the chief executive said the bank’s performance was “unacceptable.”

Before Barclays’ annual general meeting, the bank announced that a chunk of the bonuses to Diamond and Finance Director Chris Lucas would only be paid out if certain earnings targets are achieved. Diamond stands to lose 1.35 million pounds ($2.17 million) and Lucas 900,000 pounds if they miss the target.

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The measures respond to many of the problems involved in the Costa Concordia disaster: The ship rammed into a reef Jan. 13 after the captain veered off course, and then capsized off the island of Giglio, killing 32 people.

Many passengers complained they hadn’t received emergency training. Costa says such training will now be provided before passengers even board.

The measures were announced Saturday as Costa unveiled the lastest addition to its fleet: The Costa Fascinosa is now the largest Italian-flagged cruise ship.

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The operator of Walmart and Sears portrait studios reported a net loss of $43.9 million, or $6.24 a share in the quarter, compared to a profit of $14.09 million, or $2.06 a share, in the same period a year ago. And net sales dropped to $107.1 million from $128.9 million.

“Without question, we are extremely disappointed with our 2011 financial results and current liquidity challenges,” James Abel, the company’s interim chief executive officer, said in a statement my credit score. “We are in active discussions with our lenders to secure additional borrowing capacity and are aggressively pursuing operational changes.”

He also noted that the company has been aggressively weeding out underperforming stores. CPI has closed more than 500 locations since the end of the fiscal year, which ended Feb. 4.

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