While most U.S. households struggled to keep pace with inflation last year, the guy in the corner office did just fine. Profits at big U.S. companies broke records in 2011, and so did pay for CEOs. The head of a typical public company made $9.6 million, up 6 percent from 2010, according to an Associated Press analysis. The increase is about twice the rate of inflation. Companies trimmed cash bonuses but handed out more in stock awards. Many shareholder activists say CEO pay is exorbitant.

Morgan Stanley, the lead investment bank in the Facebook IPO, might pay money to some retail investors who overpaid when they bought the stock. Published reports say the firm is reviewing orders from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney clients. Technical problems at the Nasdaq stock market caused delays and confusion about Facebook trading last week. There have also been many questions, even lawsuits, over tip-offs received by Wall Street insiders about negative reports on Facebook’s future profits and revenues.

Today’s financial must-read is by former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair in Fortune Magazine. She says breaking up JP Morgan Chase into a “manageable size” would be good for taxpayers and shareholders. “Chase’s recent serious missteps have provided reform advocates with loads of ammunition,”  Bair writes. “Banks of the size and complexity of JP Morgan Chase, Citi and Bank of America are just too difficult to manage,” the former banking regulator says, even for “talented managers” like Jamie Dimon. “The leadership of these megabanks should take the lead in downsizing. The best way for Dimon to provide a better return to his investors is to recognize that his bank is worth more in smaller, easier-to-manage pieces.”

More banking pain in Europe. Spain’s market regulator suspended trading of shares in bailed-out lender Bankia. The board of the struggling lender is expected to decide how much more rescue money it needs from the government. Spanish banks were heavily exposed to real estate, and now hold substantial amounts of soured investments, such as defaulted mortgage loans or devalued property.

Broadcasters Fox, NBC and CBS are suing Dish Network over a service that offers commercial-free TV. Dish, the nation’s second-largest satellite TV provider, has filed a suit of its own seeking a judicial OK for its “AutoHop” ad-skipping technology. Dish says the unique service it launched this month doesn’t violate copyrights and that it is seeing a “groundswell of support from consumers.” The fight is over this question: whether TV distributors can cut out commercials, or whether consumers hold that power alone with their fingers on the remote.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac says the average rate on a 30-year loan fell to 3.78 percent, the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s.

The average for 15-year fixed mortgage, a popular option for refinancing, held steady at 3.04 percent, matching the record low hit last week.

Lower rates are a key reason the housing industry is showing early signs of a recovery five years after the bubble burst and the market collapsed.

Last month’s sales of both previously occupied homes and new homes rose near two-year highs. Builders are gaining more confidence, breaking ground on more homes and requesting more permits to build single-family homes later this year.

A modest improvement in the job market has also made more people open to buying a home. Employers have added 1 million jobs in the past five months.

But total home sales are still well below normal. Economists say it could be years before the market is fully healed.

One big reason is banks that were burned by the 2008 financial crisis are now much more conservative about lending money to prospective home buyers.

Mortgage rates have been dropping because they tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. Uncertainty about how Europe will resolve its debt crisis has led investors to buy more Treasury securities, which are considered safe investments. As demand for Treasurys increase, the yield falls.

-The Associated Press also contributed to this report

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC NEWS Radio twitter.com/daviesabc

                                                       (Image credit: Bensalem Township Police Department)

There are no free lunches. Money doesn’t fall from trees. And sadly, the Bank Fairy doesn’t mysteriously deposit cash into random customer accounts.

So one has to wonder what Joseph Bucci, a Trevose, Pa., resident was thinking when he went to a local Wells Fargo Bank in March and found $69,300 in his account—a miraculous increase from the $35.46 he’d had a week earlier.

But instead of bringing the mistake to the teller’s attention, Bucci went shopping, purchasing food, clothes, furniture, a used Pontiac, a trip to Orlando, and a golden retriever, Bensalem Police reported. He also allegedly helped family members pay bills.

“I guess he thought he was in elementary school and found a quarter on the ground and said ‘Finders keepers, losers weepers,’” said Bensalem Sgt. Andrew Aninsman.

“There was a sense of wow…just look at it for a while,” Bucci told CBS News.  He added: “I knew it was going to catch up to me… just didn’t know it was going to be this bad.”

Originally, said Aninsman, the deposit was to be put in escrow for an estate. But a teller typed in the wrong numbers and the funds were transferred into Bucci’s account instead. When the recipients noticed their money was missing, they contacted Wells Fargo, who tracked it down and called the police.

“We’re working closely with the local police department,” said Richelle Messick, a spokesperson for Wells Fargo.

According to Phillyburbs.com, Bucci turned himself in to Bensalem police on Tuesday. He was charged him with theft of property lost and receiving stolen property, both third-degree felonies. He faces a possible seven- to 14-year jail sentence.

He was arraigned before Bensalem District Judge Joseph Falcone, who released him on $25,000 unsecured bail.

Aninsman was amazed by the entire case. “It’s like that Bug Bunny episode when Bugs finds a pearl and Daffy Duck grabs it and screams ‘Mine! Mine! Mine’!” he said.

Remember all those dire forecasts about $5 gas for the summer? It’s not likely to happen. Gas prices are likely to fall more as the world price of oil continues to drop. West Texas crude is under $90.50 a barrel, while Brent crude for July delivery is just over $105. Both prices are at seven-month lows. Oil futures have plunged 15 percent in just three weeks. Concerns about a weaker global economy are the trigger — largely because of the European debt crisis. Another cause of cheaper oil: tensions with Iran are off the boil for now.

Plunging prices for natural gas have prompted some truckers to ditch diesel. “The economics favoring natural gas are overwhelming,” Scott Perry of Ryder Systems tells the Wall Street Journal. Ryder is one of the largest truck leasing systems. Utilities have been shifting their source of power from coal to natural gas. But the Journal reports many fleet operators, especially long-haul truckers, are concerned about a scarcity of re-fueling stations.

Europe agrees on nothing! The region’s leaders appear to be hopelessly split over what to do about Greece, and other weak economies. For the first time officials in Brussels are drawing up contingency plans in case Greece drops out of the euro currency. A messy departure could cause financial chaos and European officials are looking at how to protect bond markets and banks if Greece walks away from its obligations. At yesterday’s summit meeting in Brussels, European leaders argued over what to do, but made no clear progress in the growth vs. austerity debate.

The housing market has become to climb back from a deep slump. Sales and prices are rising. But nearly 16 million homeowners were underwater on their mortgages in the first quarter of 2012, owing a collective $1.2 trillion more than their homes were worth. The finding by the real estate information firm Zillow is that nearly one-third (31.4 percent) of U.S. homeowners with mortgages were underwater. Foreclosure is not imminent for most underwater homeowners. Nine out of 10 continue to make their mortgage and home loan payments on time, with 10.1 percent more than 90 days delinquent.

Yahoo is trying to get back in the browser biz, launching a new app called Axis. A version released in Apple’s app store alters browsers made by other companies to display search results in what is supposed to be a more convenient and visual format. The software also can be installed as a plug-in on most major browsers used on desktop computers and laptops. Apps for other mobile devices are in the works.

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC NEWS Radio twitter.com/daviesabc

Tony Avelar/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Tech giant Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to cut 27,000 employees after revealing that third-quarter results will be lower than expected.

The company outlined plans after the close of the stock market for a “multi-year productivity initiative designed to simplify business processes, advance innovation and deliver better results for customers, employees and shareholders.”

The world’s largest computer maker, based in Palo Alto, Calif., had 349,600 employees as of October 31, 2011.

The announcement was expected by the media and analysts after unconfirmed reports of layoffs last week. HP said it expects “approximately 27,000 employees to exit the company, or 8.0 percent of its workforce as of Oct. 31, 2011, by the end of fiscal year 2014.” The total number of employees affected will be lower because employees are being offered an early retirement plan. Since replacing former chief executive Leo Apothekar in September, HP CEO Meg Whitman has announced declining computer sales amid sharp competition from Apple Inc. and other electronics makers.

“These initiatives build upon our recent organizational realignment, and will further streamline our operations, improve our processes, and remove complexity from our business,” Whitman said in a statement. “While some of these actions are difficult because they involve the loss of jobs, they are necessary to improve execution and to fund the long term health of the company. We are setting HP on a path to extend our global leadership and deliver the greatest value to customers and shareholders.”
Hewlett-Packard stock has dropped 18 percent this year. Its shares fell 3.2 percent today to a closing price of $21.08.

The computer company reported sales fell 3 percent in its second quarter, which ended in April, to $30.7 billion.

Thomas Langenbach

A Silicon Valley executive was charged with four felony counts of second degree burglary after allegedly creating his own barcodes and placing them on Lego toys at Target stores to get major discounts.

Thomas Langenbach, 47, was arraigned Tuesday in Santa Clara County Court, but did not enter a plea.

The vice president of SAP Labs Integration and Certification Center allegedly stole from Target stores around his San Carlos home and then sold the items on eBay.  Each of the four counts represents the number of confirmed visits to Target stores where theft allegedly occurred.

When authorities searched his home they found hundreds of boxes of unopened Legos.   The volume and the types suggest it was not for personal use, according to Supervising Deputy District Attorney Cindy Hendrickson.

Hendrickson is not sure why Langenbach would go to such great lengths. “It’s a bit of a head scratcher, the complexity of the crime and the amount of resources needed to commit the crime leave you scratching your head”, she said.  ”Mr. Langenbach is a VP of a successful company, living in a nice home and making money gainfully and in his free time creating false barcodes and going into Target stores and stealing Legos.”

Also present in the house were packaging materials consistent with the information provided by eBay that Langenbach sold 2,100 items and made $30,000 Hendrickson said. Legos boxes, depending on the size, range in price from $15 to $279.

Target stores often count popular items before and after closing in an effort to prevent theft.   In April, Loss Prevention noticed the price of Legos in stock didn’t match store receipt records and began an inventory check.

After investigators sifted through sales records and footage they found Langenbach purchasing the toys at a much lower price, according to Hendrickson.  Investigators also realized he used a credit or debit card once and were able to get his name.

The investigation led to a search on Ebay and that is when they came across Langenbach’s year old account where he was selling Legos, police said.

A flyer with Langenbach’s picture was then circulated at Target stores to Loss Prevention teams. When Langenbach walked into a Target store in Mountain View, Calif., on May 8 the loss prevention team immediately placed him under surveillance.   That is when they noticed him placing bar codes on several items, but only buying one at a discounted price, authorities said.  Once outside, Langenbach was arrested by Mountain View police.

Hendrickson said the investigation is still ongoing and Langenbach may be charged with another count of burglary at a Target store in the neighboring San Mateo County. She added that Langenbach had three more preprinted barcodes in his pocket when he was arrested and another 32 in his car.

“It looked like something he had been doing for a while and planned to keep doing ,” she said.

Langenbach could not be reached for comment and his lawyer Thomas Greenberg declined to comment on the charges against his client.

A spokesman for SAP released a short statement. “This is a personal matter for the employee concerned and out of respect for his privacy, SAP has no comment,” the company said.

If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison.

A flurry of questions about that fumbled Facebook IPO as the share price continues to tumble. Did Facebook executives urge bankers to boost the number of shares to be sold to the public? What did big banks tell select investors about negative prospects for revenue? To what extent were other investors kept in the dark?

Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Shapiro says her agency will look into “issues” involving the IPO. Wall Street’s self regulator, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) also plans to look into communications by Morgan Stanley to insiders. The Wall Street Journal reports that less than three days before last Friday’s IPO, Facebook’s Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman decided to boost the number of shares offered to investors by 25 percent. That decision may have played a role in drop in value for Facebook shares.

Prepaid cards may face new federal regulations. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has taken the first step this morning, asking for comments on how to make sure prepaid cards are safe and come with transparent terms. Bureau Director Richard Cordray says the cards have fewer protections than bank accounts and debit cards. Banks have been criticized for the expensive fees that come with prepaid cards.

Samsung has received a huge amount of pre-orders for the Galaxy S3 smart phone. British media reports say Samsung has already received nine million pre-orders before launch, compared to Apple’s iPhone 4S’s four million units sold in the first three days. In The UK, the big consumer electronics retailer Carphone Warehouse says the S3 is the most popular phone of the year so far. The new phone goes on sale within days.

Doubts about Europe are driving global stock markets lower. Leaders of the 27 European Union countries will meet in Brussels today for a summit to deal with economic and debt problems. There are no signs of consensus about how to stop Greece from skidding into a chaotic bankruptcy

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC NEWS Radio twitter.com/daviesabc (212) 456-5100

“Prices rose strongly. The improvement in sales and prices is broad-based across all regions,” said Walter Maloney of the National Association of Realtors.  The realtors survey found that home sales rose 3.4 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.62 million.

“Consumer confidence is up with more job creation — it’s less than we’d like but nonetheless, steady job creation is creating demand, rents are rising, that’s giving some incentive to buyers who’ve been on the sidelines of the rental market,” Maloney told ABC News.

Total sales are well below the nearly 6 million per year considered normal for a healthy housing market.

“The thing that is working against the market is the abnormally tight credit conditions: that is a headwind,” says Maloney.  In other words, it’s tougher for people to qualify for loans to take advantage of the record-low interest rates.

Distressed homes accounted for a smaller percentage of overall sales in April.

Another plus: “First-time homebuyers are slowly making their way back,” said Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets.

“That is still below the 40 percent-to-45 percent range during healthy times, but the highest in almost half a year.”

Builders have grown more confident since last fall, in part because more people have expressed an interest in buying a home.

Shares in PulteGroup, KB Home and other big homebuilding firms rallied today on the stock market.

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC NEWS Radio twitter.com/daviesabc

Forget Facebook. The stock market still belongs to Apple, the world’s most valuable company. Apple shares rose nearly 6 percent yesterday as stocks rallied after weeks of losses because of the debt crisis in Europe. Apple’s bounce was the firm’s second-largest gain this year, as analysts said they expect iPhone business to continue to do well. The Standard and Poor’s 500 had its best day in a month and the Nasdaq index had its strongest gain this year.

All this came despite an 11 percent drop for Facebook shares on its second day of trading after the IPO. Facebook is facing criticism for issuing too many shares at too high a price. “If they had issued 5 percent of Facebook shares instead of 15 percent, I think the stock would be at $45 right now and everyone would be happy,” says analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities. The social networking firm is now under a harsh new spotlight after going public.

A new warning about the eurozone, responsible for so much investor angst in recent weeks. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned today the eurozone risks falling into a “severe recession.”  The OECD is calling on Europe’s central bank to act fast to stop the slowdown spilling into the global economy. The report forecasts a longer and deeper contraction in the eurozone than predicted in November, with the eurozone economy expected to shrink in 2012, and only manage a feeble recovery in 2013.

Dalian Wanda Group is not exactly a household name, but it’s on the verge of becoming a high stakes player in Hollywood. The Chinese real estate and manufacturing firm says it will spend $2.6 billion to buy AMC Entertainment Holdings – the second-largest US cinema chain. The Wall Street Journal says “the deal would create one of the world’s largest cinema owners and mark the largest acquisition of a US corporation by a Chinese buyer on record.”

The head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission says an investigation has begun into JP Morgan’s big trading loss. Chairman Gary Gensler says the probe is “related to credit derivatives products as traded by the chief investment officer of JPMorgan Chase.” Under the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, the CFTC gained powers to monitor trading in indexes of derivatives.

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC NEWS Radio twitter.com/daviesabc

But in Manhattan’s tony Greenwich Village, it will buy a parking spot.

That’s right: A garage space at 66 E.11th Street will soon be offered for a cool $1 million, perhaps intended for that discerning Ferrari driver for whom a mere six-figure parking spot just won’t do.

If you think a million dollars is way too much to spend on a measly piece of concrete to park the old set of wheels, think again. “It really is the defining luxury amenity,”  says Dolly Lenz, vice-chairman at New York real estate firm Prudential Douglas Elliman, which will sell the space. “You’d be surprised about how many people have big car collections. We wish we had more garage spots.”

And the specs are pretty sweet. The coveted parking spot is inside the apartment building, complete with curb cut, a rarity in the New York City parking landscape. The garage space boasts 15-foot ceilings, which allows for ample storage space, and the owner could even stack two cars onto ramps to create a duplex parking arrangement. In light of all that, “this is actually undervalued,” Lenz told ABCNews.com. “Normally, when you buy a garage, you are literally buying between two lines in a designated spot.”

Lenz has even witnessed bidding wars reaching $600,000, just for a space between two lines. That’s because–like any other luxury item, from Birkin bags to rare diamonds–it’s the scarcity of available parking in New York that creates such cache.

To put it all in perspective, Lenz says she sold a double penthouse at 200 11th Avenue to Domenico Dolce (as in, Dolce & Gabbana) for $50 million, which included two garage spots. “So there is precedent for this type of situation,” she said.

As the word has spread about the city’s swishest parking spot, Lenz has received “overwhelming interest” in buying the spot, even though she can’t even discuss sales because the plans for 66 E.11th Street haven’t yet been approved by the city.

As in, dozens of inquiries? Hundreds? She would only say, “More than dozens. We’d probably get more if I could respond.”

First dibs will go to the buyer of the building’s  townhouse or penthouse; with the latter going for $38.8 million, the parking spot is just a drop in the bucket.

Lenz added:  “We’re not talking about really big numbers here, at $1 million. It will be more about getting it. I think people will bid above what the asking [price] is.”