Tuesday morning headlines

Stocks back off: Nothing like a big market day to get traders antsy. After yesterday's 124-point gain on the Dow, Wall Street is pretty much treading water this morning.

Pickup in home prices: L.A. saw a 1.8 percent increase between June and July, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index, though the decline from a year earlier was almost 15 percent. Most all cities in the index had month-to-month price gains. From the release:

"We now seem to be witnessing some sustained monthly increases across many of the markets," says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's.

Dip in gas prices: Two refinery fires last week weren't enough to stem an ongoing decline in pump prices. An average gallon in the L.A. area was $3.107, according to the government survey, down about three cents.

Big decision on San Pedro: L.A.'s Harbor Commission is expected to vote today on a monster $1.2 billion plan to make over the waterfront. They've been talking about this, in one form or another, for 10 years. From the LAT:

The project calls for replacing the ailing Ports O' Call Village tourist spot with up to 300,000 square feet of new restaurants and shops and a 75,000-square-foot conference center. It would be a crucial source of income and jobs. The project also calls for completion of an 8.7-mile promenade, 27 acres of new parks, fountains, three pocket harbors and a fireboat museum along eight miles of waterfront on the west side of the Port of Los Angeles' main channel.

Newegg goes public: The online tech retailer, based in the City of Industry, plans an initial public offering of stock worth up to $175 million. No word on when the IPO is planned. (MarketWatch)

100-year Ponzi sentence: Here's a dubious achievement: Richard Monroe Harkless is being put away for what federal prosecutors described as the longest sentence ever imposed for a financial crime in Socal. From the LAT:

Prosecutors said Harkless, using a team of sales agents, told clients that he would invest their money in government-guaranteed construction loans and promised monthly returns as high as 14% every three months. Instead of investing in construction, Harkless wired some of the money to foreign banks, paid high commissions to agents and launched a crab-fishing business in Ensenada, prosecutors said. Some early investors were paid dividends that came from later investors -- a classic Ponzi scheme, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Eric D. Vandevelde.

Storybooks on Web: Disney Publishing is introducing a subscription-based Web site ($79.95 a year) that will offer electronic replicas of hundreds of Disney books. The books will be read aloud by voice actors, with each word highlighted on the screen as it is spoken. (NYT)

Lacter on radio: This morning's business chat with KPCC's Frank Stoltze (Steve Julian is away) covers the recent elections at the Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild, and the prospect for social networking sites to make money. Also on kpcc.org and on podcast.