Stocks end wild week with a modest rise

 

One of the wildest weeks in Wall Street history came to a tame close with stocks not far from where they began Monday morning.

After four consecutive days of 400-point swings, the Dow Jones industrial average rose a relatively modest 125 points Friday to bring the blue-chip average to within 175 points of where it was exactly a week earlier.

"It appears as though we’ve come out of this week almost whole," said Bernie McGinn, founder of McGinn Investment Management. "On Wednesday afternoon no one would have suspected that."

Friday’s rise came after the government announced that retail spending, one of the main drivers of the economy, rose in July at the fastest pace since April.

The Dow ended the day up 125.71 points, or 1.1%, at 11,269.02. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index was up less sharply.

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Photo: The floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday. Credit: Getty Images.

Port of Los Angeles setting a record pace for exports

The nation's busiest seaport, Los Angeles, is on pace to have a record year in exports, officials announced Friday.

Exports through the harbor in July were up 12.8% to 165,135 containers, from 146,369 a year ago. In 2010, the No. 1 ranked container port set a record for exports with more than 1.8 million containers, but is so far on pace to surpass that total.

"We are pleased with the numbers. This is a robust total for exports, especially when you consider that last year was our best for that category," said Los Angeles port spokesman Phillip Sanfield.

Even with the strong showing for exports, however, the nation's huge trade deficit was again apparent. There were more than twice as many imports moving through the port in July, even though the numbers represented a decline of 3.2% to 357,668 containers, from 369,389 a year earlier.

Empty containers represented the biggest drop at the port, down 23% to 165,523 containers, from 214,988 a year ago. Empties are usually headed back to Asia to be later refilled by more imports, but the large number of export containers meant that fewer empties needed to be shipped back.

Overall, the port moved 688,326 cargo containers in July, off 5.8% from a year ago.

Sanfield said that port officials were not worried that the numbers represented a slowdown in the economy. He pointed out that the port experienced an unusually heavy cargo season last summer as retailers rushed to replenish record low product inventories left depleted after the Great Recession. This year, the heaviest months for cargo aren't expected to begin until September.

For the year, the Port of Los Angeles is still slightly ahead of its 2010 pace through July. The port has moved just under 4.5 million containers through the first seven months of 2011, an increase of 1.4% compared with the same period last year. That's already more than all but two other U.S. ports will move during the entire year. Only second-ranked Long Beach and third-ranked New York-New Jersey will exceed that total this year.

When considered as a single harbor, Los Angeles and neighboring Long Beach rank as the world's sixth-busiest seaport complex.

--Ronald D. White

Photo courtesy of the Port of L.A.

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Japan-to-U.S. visits continue to drop since quake and tsunami

The number of Japanese tourists visiting the U.S. has dropped significantly since the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

But the drop in Japanese tourists comes as visitor numbers from Brazil, Australia and China continue to soar.

In May, the number of tourists from Japan dropped to 207,341, a 17% decline from the same month in 2010, according to the federal agency. The May decline was Japan's third straight month of double-digit percentage drops in visitors to the U.S.

Before the quake, Japan was the third-largest source of international tourists to the U.S., with Japanese tourists spending more than $14 billion in the country in 2010. Since the quake, Japan has dropped to the fourth-largest source of international visitors, behind Canada, Mexico and the U.K.

Meanwhile, visitor numbers have increased by double-digit percentages from China, Australia and Brazil, partly because of stable economies and favorable exchange rates for tourists from those countries.

-- Hugo Martin

Photo: Japanese tourists pose for photos at Disneyland. Credit: Los Angeles Times.

Ex-HMO attorney named head regulator of California health plans

 

A former attorney for one of the nation’s largest HMOs has been picked to run the California agency that oversees health plans. 

Brent Barnhart, 68, was named by Gov. Jerry Brown this week to lead the California Department of Managed Health Care, which regulates HMO health coverage for more than 21 million Californians. 

Barnhart spent 13 years as senior counsel for the Oakland-based Kaiser Foundation Health Plan. The nonprofit provides healthcare to more than 8.8 million people in eight states and Washington, D.C.

Barnhart came out of retirement to take the job, becoming just the third director of the managed healthcare department since it was created more than a decade ago.

The Danville resident said he couldn’t resist the opportunity to lead a consumer protection agency, particularly with national healthcare reform swiftly changing how health plans and providers deliver healthcare.

“This is a career capper for me,” Barnhart said. “This is like being released to do what I want -– to make things work.”

Prior to his work at Kaiser, Barnhart spent three years as a policy consultant to the state Assembly and was legislative affairs director for Blue Cross of California in the early 1990s. He also worked at the Association of California Life and Health Insurance Companies, a trade group, and at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Barnhart must still be confirmed by the state Senate. His annual salary will be $142,965.

Brown made two other healthcare-related appointments this week, neither of which requires Senate confirmation.

The governor named Shelley Rouillard, 55, as chief deputy director of the managed healthcare department. The Sacramento resident came from the state’s Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board, where she was deputy director of the benefits and quality monitoring division. She will earn $125,000.

John Shen, 61, has been appointed chief of the long-term care division at the state Department of Health Care Services. In his last job, Shen was executive director of the Marin Community Clinic. The Berkeley resident will earn $122,196 a year.

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-- Duke Helfand

 

Fish as an economic indicator: Sushi is most expensive in L.A.

Los Angeles is the priciest place to live in the country according to one fishy economic indicator.

Angelenos can gorge on the most expensive sushi in the U.S., according to Bloomberg Rankings.

Then again, they may not want to, considering that they have to shell out 27% more than the average American for raw fish on rice. And at establishments such as Urasawa in Beverly Hills, a pair of sushi lovers can easily spend more than $1,000 on a single meal.

The Sushinomics Cost-of-Living Index is based on prices for spicy tuna and California rolls at restaurants across 27 major cities. New York sushi costs a pretty penny -- nearly 21% above the average -- as does sushi in San Francisco, Minneapolis and Austin, Texas.

Restaurants in Princeton, N.J., price sushi more than 27% below the national average.

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Photo: Sushi in West Los Angeles. Credit: Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times

Coca-Cola beefs up green fleet

The world's largest soft-drink maker, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co., wants you to know that your beverages may be delivered by a new hybrid or electric truck.

Coca-Cola has nearly doubled the size of its greener fleet of trucks since 2010, company officials said, and they are making the claim of having the nation's largest low-emissions bottling fleet at a 1 p.m. event in downtown Los Angeles today.

The event will be held at Coca-Cola Refreshments of Southern California at 12th and Birch streets in downtown Los Angeles.

"We as a company are working very hard to get sustainability into our business practices, so we are transforming a good portion of our fleet with green technology with the intent to push our carbon footprint down and get better fuel efficiencies," said Tim Heinen, vice president of field operations for Coca-Cola's western region.

"By the end of the year, we will have more than 740 alternative-fuel vehicles operating throughout North America, and about 40% of them will be right here in California," Heinen said.

The Coca-Cola fleet currently has 691 hybrid electric medium-duty trucks, for example, with 43 more on order, he said

The total Coca-Cola fleet has about 10,000 trucks, Heinen said.

Ron Stassi, fleet manager for the company's western region, added that Coca-Cola hopes to be rolling out other new technologies, such as forklifts powered by hydrogen fuel cells for use in its warehouse in San Leandro.

He said the newer trucks have helped the company reduce its fuel costs by 22%.

Heinen said that more customers care about sustainability practices and are making purchases based on the efforts that businesses put into reducing their emissions footprint.

"We know that it does matter to people, and we want to show that we are trying to make a difference. We are committed to it," Heinen said.

-- Ronald D. White

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Honda to build small cars in Mexico

Honda plans to spend $800 million building a new automobile plant in Mexico for fuel-efficient subcompact vehicles such as the Fit.

Cars coming out of the factory, which is expected to begin operation in 2014, will be sold in the Mexican and U.S. markets. The plant will be built in a suburb of Celaya, Guanajuato, and have the capacity to turn out about 200,000 cars annually.

The factory will be the eighth Honda auto plant in North America and will increase Honda’s automobile production capacity in North America from the current 1.63 million units to 1.83 million units. Last year, more than 87% of Honda and Acura cars and light trucks sold in America were produced in North America.

“With growing demand for fuel-efficient vehicles, this plant will increase Honda’s ability to meet customer needs for subcompact vehicles from within North America,” said Tetsuo Iwamura, president of American Honda Motor Co. and chief operating officer for Honda’s North America Region. “This new plant will further strengthen the foundation of Honda’s North American business by enabling Honda to more flexibly respond to changing market conditions from within the region.”

Honda believes that demand for fuel-efficient, subcompact vehicles in North America will continue to grow, and this plant will enable the automaker to supply that growth with regional production, which helps insulate it from the ill effects of currency exchange rates.

Analysts say the combination of higher gas prices and more stringent federal fuel-economy standards will make subcompact cars one of the fastest growing segments of the auto industry over the next several years.

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-- Jerry Hirsch
Twitter.com/LATimesJerry

Photo: Honda Fit. Credit: Bloomberg News