DALLAS (AP) -- Dell Inc. said Thursday that its profit and sales grew in its fiscal first quarter, beating Wall Street expectations and signaling that the computer maker's turnaround efforts may be paying off.

For the three months ended May 2, Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Inc. earned $784 million, or 38 cents per share, up from $756 million, or 34 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier.

Dell says its revenue jumped 9 percent to $16.08 billion from $14.72 billion.

On average, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expected a profit of 34 cents per share on sales of $15.68 billion.

The company said strong growth of commercial and consumer products and services and lower operating costs as a percentage of sales helped drive the results above the forecasts.

Dell shares rose 12 cents Thursday, closing at $21.81 before the quarterly results were released. In extended trading, the shares jumped $2.02, or 9.3 percent, to $23.83.

Dell is trying to cut costs by $3 billion while also chasing Hewlett-Packard Co. in worldwide shipments of personal computers, a category it once led.

Dell still leads HP in U.S. PC sales, according to technology research firms IDC and Gartner Inc., but that

NEW YORK (AP) -- Bear Stearns shareholders have approved JPMorgan Chase's buyout, ending the saga of the 85-year-old pillar of Wall Street that crumbled under the weight of its own wagers on high-risk mortgages.

The tumult is far from over, however, for JPMorgan Chase & Co. -- which now must mesh Bear Stearns' maverick culture with its own -- and the thousands of workers affected by the takeover.

Bear Stearns officially becomes part of JPMorgan Chase on Friday, after a widely anticipated "yes" vote that won with 84 percent of the vote Thursday morning at Bear Stearns' midtown Manhattan headquarters.

All told, the deal was worth about $2.3 billion. JPMorgan is spending $1.4 billion for the firm itself, and spent an additional $900 million over the past month-and-a-half buying up Bear Stearns stock to guarantee the deal would go through.

Thursday's meeting, led by Bear Stearns' chairman James Cayne and CEO Alan Schwartz, lasted less than 10 minutes, leaving some Bear Stearns' shareholders angered by the speed at which the deal closed.

"They were up there drinking coffee paid with my money ... and we lost our money overnight," said Hannah Horgan, a Bear Stearns shareholder. "I have nothing left, and they were so calm."

Back in January 2007, before mortgage defaults began clobbering banks and draining demand from the

With so much contradictory advice floating around, it is sometimes hard to figure out the best way to save for retirement.

Financial experts say that one often-overlooked resource is the humble Individual Retirement Account, or I.R.A., which has been a part of the personal finance landscape for so long that many of us take it for granted.

More than 90 percent of the money that flows into traditional I.R.A.’s is being rolled over from retirement plans at work, like 401(k)’s. On the other hand, only 14 percent of American households that were eligible to make direct I.R.A. contributions did so in 2006, according to the most recent data from the Investment Company Institute, the mutual fund industry trade group.

The rules for some I.R.A. contributions are so complex that many Americans may not realize they are eligible to make them, said Brian Reid, the chief economist at the Investment Company Institute. Indeed, the I.R.A. rules fill a 108-page brochure on the Web site.

And while investors often fund a 401(k) at work before contributing to an I.R.A., particularly if employers offer matching contributions, many people don’t have a 401(k) or other workplace option. Alicia H. Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, said that 57 percent of “prime working-age Americans,” defined as 25 to 64 years old, had no retirement plan at work. Contributing to