Oleander -- Nerium oleander
The Spaniards brought the oleander to Florida in 1565. It had been popular in its native Mediterranean, Middle East, Himalayas and China for at least 4,000 years, in both its scented and odorless flower forms.
This beautiful and basic landscape plant in [...]
DoubleLine LLC, the L.A. money management firm launched by star bond fund manager Jeffrey Gundlach after his ouster from TCW Group on Dec. 4, has hired away the head of TCW’s mutual funds arm -- bringing to more than 40 the number of TCW staffers who’ve jumped ship in two [...]
After two years of depreciation, home prices edged up 0.2% in the third quarter compared with the previous quarter, according to a report released today.
California led the way with a 2.1% increase, according to data compiled by forecasting and research group IHS Global Insight and PNC Financial [...]
--- The dollar is the new strongman of world currencies, and some chart-watchers think this turn in the buck definitely has legs. Great for our purchasing power, but not for our exporters or that foreign-stock mutual fund in your 401(k). Another sign of the sentiment shift: The [...]
[...]
At least until the new year.
The dollar’s three-week-old rebound gained steam Thursday, hammering traders who figured the greenback had no shot at reviving any time soon.
Instead, fresh worries about debt troubles outside the U.S. helped trigger another [...]
While the recession may be ebbing, it continues to linger in the minds of consumers and will dictate spending trends well into next year, according to Todd Hale, a senior vice president at Nielsen Co., the market research firm.
Here’s his view of how continued consumer thriftiness will influence spending trends [...]
A new national survey looking at the phenomenon of strategic defaults, in which homeowners choose foreclosure over continuing to pay on underwater mortgages, has found that nearly one out of 10 homeowners say they would walk away if they felt financially vulnerable and owed more on their homes than they were [...]
Northern Californians had some good housing news to cheer this morning: San Francisco Bay Area home prices in November rose 10.6% from the same month a year prior.
It was the second month in a row that the median price paid [...]
Bechtel Construction Co. is pairing with two local unions to fill construction jobs for a solar thermal facility under development in the San Bernardino County desert, the organizations said this morning.
Once construction on the 440-megawatt Ivanpah Solar Electricity Generating System gets underway [...]Here's your thirsty-Thursday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:
--This is Free Shipping Day, with about 740 retailers saying that if you buy something online today, you'll pay no shipping costs. That's pretty cool, of course. But this has been free shipping season, by and large, so it's not [...]
--- The Senate Banking Committee votes to give Ben S. Bernanke a second term as Federal Reserve chairman, but Bernie Sanders has another idea: early retirement.
--- For shareholders, Citigroup's attempt to exit TARP has been a bust.
--- Delayed reaction: The [...]
For nearly two months, people with good credit who can make 20% downpayments on homes have enjoyed 30-year mortgage rates below 5%.
But as signs of an improving economy increase, the yield on bonds has been edging higher and pulling home-lending rates along as [...]
Striking the proper balance between incentives for innovation and encouragement of competition has been an issue for lawmakers since the patent system was first devised.
As my column for Thursday observes, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) achieved this beyond their wildest expectations with the Hatch-Waxman Act [...]
Cedar Fair, which owns Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park and other amusement parks nationwide, agreed late Wednesday to a $2.4-billion buyout by private equity firm Apollo Global Management.
The deal follows a poor summer for Cedar Fair as the lousy economy clipped park attendance. The Sandusky, Ohio, company’s [...]
OnStar has planned a nice holiday feature for kids -- it will be providing hourly updates of Santa's Christmas Eve travels via its car communication service.
But the company is promoting the feature with a YouTube video that shows Santa learning about the wonders of [...]
Bill Watkins, who runs the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, goes out on a limb today: He says the state should start discussing contingency plans with the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve for the day California defaults on its debt.
“In my [...]
It’s hard to look tough on a Honda cruiser, no matter how rad the styling. Take the latest version of the longstanding and popular Shadow, which, with its blacked-out pretty much everything, is more hooligan than most Honda products but still practical.
Updated for 2010 with [...]
Christmas is right around the corner, but your gift might still be sitting at the mall.
In a survey released Wednesday, the National Retail Federation said the average person had completed just 46.7% of their holiday shopping by the second week of December.
That’s [...]
Consumer columnist David Lazarus writes in today's Los Angeles Times:
"Amid a national debate on how to make the healthcare system friendlier and more accessible, and as millions of people grapple with the loss of jobs and homes, what does insurance heavyweight Blue Shield of California do?
"It decides to take [...]
Federal Reserve policymakers today reiterated their pledge to keep short-term interest rates near zero for an “extended period,” but also reminded financial markets that most of the special lending programs created during the worst of the credit crunch will be terminated on Feb. 1.
No real surprises on either count. Now [...]
--- It’s Fed meeting day (policy statement due at 11:15 a.m. PST), and Chairman Ben Bernanke is Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.” Some Americans apparently would disagree.
--- Meanwhile, former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder tells us all to lighten up about the economy. "Net job [...]
Here's your wantonly Wednesday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:
-- Consumer prices were up last month, but the experts were expecting that, so nothing to worry about. The Labor Department says consumer prices rose 0.4%, mostly because of an increase in energy prices. Take away energy and [...]
While executives at Paramount and DreamWorks thought they were making a movie that would appeal to adults, testing has shown the only audience responding strongly to "The Lovely Bones" is teenage and college-age girls.
After spending $150 million on production and marketing costs and counting on a broad -- and [...]
The bankrupt parent of Washington Mutual Bank asked the judge in its reorganization case to allow for an expansion of a probe into the circumstances immediately leading up to the September 2008 failure.
From the Puget Sound Business Journal:
A filing in the Washington Mutual bankruptcy case says that new evidence [...]
-- Pat [...]
Many of the world’s governments borrowed and spent with abandon this year to keep their economies afloat. And investors mostly were happy to oblige, providing enough demand for sovereign bonds to keep a lid on longer-term interest rates.
But now what? Moody’s Investors Service is out with a preview of the [...]
Fresh evidence that lenders are increasingly working with California’s troubled homeowners emerged today as a research firm reported that the average number of foreclosures canceled on a daily basis increased by 40% in November compared to October.
Nevertheless, the average number of properties repossessed by banks on a daily basis continued [...]
Trying to wean the air industry off of petroleum jet fuel, 15 airlines and carriers signed preliminary deals to use synthetic fuels instead, the trade group Air Transport Assn. of America said today.
Air Canada, American Airlines Corp., Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Delta Air Lines Inc., FedEx Corp.’s Fedex Express, Jetblue [...]
Bacon, wine cocktails and a consumer backlash against ubiquitous nutritional claims by food manufacturers are among the top food trends for 2010, according to advertising agency J. Walter Thompson.
Here are five of the top trends compiled by the agency, which counts food giants Nestle, [...]
--- This week’s Federal Reserve meeting marks the one-year anniversary of zero short-term interest rates. No way rates are going up at this meeting, which wraps up on Wednesday. But the latest inflation numbers are giving the bond market the creeps today.
--- The dollar’s rally [...]
Here's your tantalizing Tuesday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:
-- More than 50 million Roman-style window shades are being recalled because of a risk that kids could be strangled by the cords. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says five deaths and 16 [...]
Condos in a failed Marina del Rey complex built during the height of the real estate boom were auctioned at a discount Sunday with buyers spending $20.5 million for 41 units in two competitive hours of bidding.
The complex, called Element, at 4141 Glencoe Ave. was built by John Laing Homes [...]
Mexico’s credit rating took another hit today, edging closer to “junk” status, on worries about the country’s growing budget deficit and dwindling oil revenue.
But stock and currency investors continue to give Mexico the benefit of the doubt in the short run. Some investors may well wonder why the country deserves [...]
Here's your mortifying Monday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:
-- We plan to spend less this holiday season -- really. That's the word from the latest CNN poll, which finds that about half of us say we'll be cutting back in the fiscal-outlay department for the holidays, [...]
Star bond fund manager Jeffrey Gundlach, fired by L.A. money manager TCW Group on Dec. 4, said Monday he would partner with Oaktree Capital Management to launch a new investment firm.
The agreement with Oaktree will unite Gundlach with a group of former TCW executives who broke away from the firm [...]
I don't fully understand why the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, has become such a symbol of bad government anti-recessionary policy. No one who kept a close eye on the state of the financial system in September and October of 2008 can ever forget the feeling in the pit [...]
Los Angeles hotels charged less and had more empty rooms in October than a year earlier, an industry report shows.
The average daily rate at hotels in Los Angeles County for October was $140.84, down 13.4% from the same month in 2008, reported PKF Consulting, a hospitality research firm. Average occupancy was 73.1%, down [...]
Los Angeles-based commercial real estate brokerage CB Richard Ellis Group just got a big gig from the state of
California: selling an estimated $2 billion worth of office state office buildings to help
raise money [...]
The chitalpa -- x Chitalpa tashkentensis
In the early '60s, Professor F.N. Rusanov of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences Botanical Garden in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, decided to cross two related but quite different plant genera in the Bignonia family: the narrow leaf desert willow, Chilopsis linearis, native to the U.S. Southwest, [...]
Aircraft parts supplier Unical Aviation Inc. has agreed to move its headquarters from Irwindale to the City of Industry in what brokers say is the largest industrial property lease of the year in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
Unical has rented 467,199 square feet in a lease valued at $20.6 million, [...]
FirstFed Financial Corp. said today that its chairwoman and chief executive, Babette E. Heimbuch, is resigning after 13 years at the helm of the savings and loan, whose fortunes rose and fell with the boom and bust in the tricky loans known as pay-option adjustable-rate mortgages.
In a [...]
Some highlights from the investor conference call held this morning by Tad Rivelle, who took over the reins of most of TCW Group's bond funds after the big L.A. money manager unexpectedly ousted veteran investment chief Jeffrey Gundlach one week ago:
--- Redemptions from TCW's flagship Total Return Bond fund, [...]
Here's your festive Friday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:
--Yes, we're shopping. That's the word from the Commerce Department, which says retail sales were up a healthy 1.3% last month, indicating that the economic recovery is gaining traction. A separate report shows that consumer sentiment is improving as [...]
For the moment, Tad Rivelle’s success as a money manager may be judged less by what he makes than by what he keeps.
One week ago, Rivelle and his L.A. firm, Metropolitan West Asset Management, agreed to a buyout by larger cross-town rival TCW Group, and immediately took responsibility for most [...]
Southern California's industrial real estate markets have a chance of getting off their knees next year, but the office market should continue to be painful for owners, according to a report released today.
“Heightened traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will create more jobs and an increased [...]
Michael Hiltzik, Tom Petruno, Alex Lazo, David Lazarus, Scott Reckard, David Colker, Walter Hamilton, Melissa Rohlin, Lauren Beale, Tiffany Hsu, Jerry Hirsch, Andrea Chang, Roger Vincent, Pat Benson, Jon Healey, Alex Pham, Ronald D. White, Lauren Raab, LATimes, Susan Carpenter, Mark Milian, Alana Semuels, Scott Wilson, Nancy Rivera, Nathan Olivarez-Giles, Jim Puzzanghera, Marc Lifsher, Dan Neil, Ken Bensinger, David Undercoffler, Martin Zimmerman, Marla Dickerson, W.J. Hennigan, Peter Pae, Jennifer Martin
