Wednesday links: a risk reversal

Quote of the day

Barry Ritholtz, “The US banking sector is not healthy.”  (Big Picture)

Chart of the day

Intel ($INTC) has a higher dividend yield than Consolidated Edison ($ED).  (Ticker Sense)

Markets

The market seems to be tracing out a higher low.  (Crossing Wall Street, TheArmoTrader)

Is the Brazilian stock market down 25% a buy?  (FT Tilt)

ETF investors are just as nervous as mutual fund investors.  (IndexUniverse)

How long before so-called ‘double-decker funds‘ come to the US?  (WSJ)

Strategy

There is not one beta, but many betas.  (All About Alpha)

On the importance of trend following.  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

The nuance behind the practice of portfolio rebalancing.  (ETF Replay)

What capitulation looks like.  (DowntownTrader)

Unconventional wisdom

Commission-free ETFs are not necessarily cheap.  (Wealthfront)

Individual investors has some very real advantages over professional investors.  (Minyanville)

Don’t believe the hype from system salesmen.  (Peter L. Brandt)

Why writing headlines about market action is a suckers game.  (A Dash of Insight)

Companies

Product momentum is now more important than ever in the tech sector.  (NYTimes)

Kindle Plus:  how Amazon ($AMZN) could create a viable competitor to the iPad.  (Slate)

The regulations surrounding mobile payments is exceedingly complicated.  (Felix Salmon)

Caterpillar ($CAT) as a bellwether for global growth.  (research puzzle pix)

Finance

Why bank stock prices matter.  (NetNet also FT Alphaville)

NYSE vs. Nasdaq for the big tech IPOs.  (Institutional Investor)

Complex products work for the banks, but not their customers.  (Expect[ed] Loss)

What goes on behind the scenes when a broker leaves a firm.  (I Heart Wall Street)

Global

Japan is pulling out some unconventional tools to offset the strong Yen. (WSJ, HuffPo, The Source)

China has had enough of the Euro.  (The Source)

What the case of Italy tells us about the Eurozone crisis.  (Curious Capitalist)

The global economy could take any number of diverging paths.  (Deus ex Macchiato)

Economy

Where QE2 went off the rails.  (FT Alphaville)

Durable and capital goods orders don’t point toward a recession, yet. (Capital Spectator, CBP)

The Baltic Dry Index is showing signs of life.  (MarketBeat)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

What you missed in our Wednesday morning linkfest.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

Too bad the country of Greece isn’t earning royalties off increasingly popular Greek yogurt.  (Atlantic Business)

Feeling a bit chunky?  Blame the bear market.  (LiveScience)

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Monday links: natural constraints

Quote of the day

Paul Carr, “He [Steve Jobs] did not set out to destroy existing business models, he just noticed their lack of relevance and came up with new ones that kept consumers happy and Apple fat.”  (NYTimes)

Chart of the day

Apple ($AAPL) stock has shrugged off the Steve Jobs resignation.  (Businessweek)

Video of the day

Robert Shiller on the malaise gripping the US economy and home markets.  (WealthTrack)

Markets

Who says equity market valuations have to rise?  (Big Picture)

Defensive sectors continue to lead the market.  (Dragonfly Capital)

Future equity returns depend in large part on the history used.  (EconomPic Data)

Emerging market bonds have turned into a safe haven asset class.  (WSJ)

Most Americans don’t care about stocks.  (TheArmoTrader)

Have we really seen the panic necessary for a real bottom?  (Humble Student)

Strategy

Loss aversion at work.  (Crossing Wall Street)

Tom Brakke, “The natural constraints of an investment style or strategy can be too easily ignored.”  (the research puzzle)

Commodity prices are too high.  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

The attraction of building a portfolio with multiple strategies.  (Term Sheet)

Research

Evidence of SAD from mutual fund flows.  (SSRN via Capital Spectator)

Underpromise and overdeliver:  the case of CEO promises.  (SSRN via Empirical Finance Blog)

The Jackson Hole papers.  (FT Alphaville)

Companies

The other shoe drops at Bank of America ($BAC) with a sale of half of its stake in China Construction Bank.  (Dealbook)

The secret plan over the past year to kill Hewlett-Packard ($HPQ) is working out as planned.  (WSJ)

All eyes are on the potential Amazon ($AMZN) tablet.  (AllThingsD)

The next new blockbuster pharmaceutical.  (Bloomberg)

Are there second acts in venture capital?  Kleiner Perkins hopes so.  (WSJ)

Global

Why is the ECB so focused on inflation?  (James Surowiecki)

Every dog has his day:  the Greek stock market rallies.  (Bespoke, Crackerjack Finance)

Emerging markets have not really decoupled from the rest of the world.  (Michael Pettis)

You can buy a share of Manchester United, just don’t expect voting rights.  (WSJ)

Economy

The national ISM manufacturing survey is likely to come in weak.  (MarketBeat, Modeled Behavior)

Pres. Obama gets a new CEA chief, Alan Krueger.  (WSJ, Bloomberg, Modeled Behavior, Megan McArdle)

Consumer spending on the rise.  (Calculated Risk, Capital Spectator)

Consumer balance sheets still have a ways to go to get back to historical norms.  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

Why so much focus on the role of speculation in oil futures?  (Econbrowser)

The US economy is becoming more vulnerable to hurricanes.  (Real Time Economics)

Changing demographics and an easy fix for the economy.  (FT Alphaville)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

What you missed in our Monday morning linkfest.  (Abnormal Returns)

Rising stock correlations:  this too shall pass.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

Some end of summer reading: The Little Book of Trading by Michael Covel.  (Au.Tra.Sy Blog)

Identity+context=the killer app.  (Howard Lindzon)

Abnormal Returns is a founding member of the StockTwits Blog Network.

The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.

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Tuesday links: better credits

Quote of the day

Gillian Tett, “At the end of last week, trading in the credit derivatives markets implied that no less than 70 large US companies are now considered a better credit bet than the American government, according to Markit data.”  (FT also MarketBeat)

Chart of the day

The S&P 500 at inflection points.  (Big Picture)

Markets

Ten reasons to look at the bright side of things.  (Brett Arends contra Jon Markman)

What the stock market typically does the last two days of the month.  (Bespoke)

Contango has eased across many commodity markets, except WTI.  (FT Alphaville, ibid)

Strategy

What fund managers are likely doing this week.  (Investing With Options)

What the ultimate stock pickers are buying and selling.  (Morningstar)

Momentum generally works, just not at market turning points.  (Morningstar)

Is all the bitching on Twitter worth something after all?  (The Reformed Broker)

Why trading is nothing like sports.  (Minyanville)

Spread trades

ExxonMobil ($XOM) vs. Chevron ($CVX).  (Dynamic Hedge)

Coal vs. gas:  a tale of the tape.  (Dragonfly Capital)

Companies

Winners and losers:  the Apple ($AAPL) disruption edition.  (Big Picture)

Kevin C. Tofel, “Amazon has levers that few others can pull in the tablet space in terms of price flexibility.”  (GigaOM)

College kids are going back to school in plush new apartments.  How to play the trend.  (YCharts)

In praise of subscription fees for social sites, like Angie’s List.  (WSJ)

Finance

The social media and greater access to information will upend current business models in finance.  (Data Diary)

Hedge funds are about marketing and fees, not performance.  (Clusterstock)

Algorithms are smarter than people until they start interacting with each other.  (The Physics of Finance)

The media, Warren Buffett and Bank of America ($BAC).  (Value Plays)

Why (and how) the stock price of a mutual fund manager matters.  (SSRN)

Global

Sino-Forest bonds are trading at 33 cents on the dollar.  (Globe and Mail)

Poland’s economy is a bright spot in Central Europe.  (beyondbrics)

Economy

US consumer confidence falls even farther into the dumps.  (Bloomberg, EconomPic Data, Credit Writedowns, TRB)

The double dip in housing per Case-Shiller.  (Calculated Risk)

Is there anything that can be done about the economy?  (The New Republic)

Would another round of bank stress tests boost confidence?  (Free exchange)

Painful problems are normally not anticipated.  (Falkenblog)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

The quest for alpha cuts both ways.  (Abnormal Returns)

What you missed in our Tuesday morning linkfest.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

Pundits are prone to change their methods to fit their conclusion.  (A Dash of Insight)

How to get the most out of StockTwits.  (Howard Lindzon, Chicago Sean)

In praise of working less.  (The Atlantic)

Abnormal Returns is a founding member of the StockTwits Blog Network.

The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.

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Saturday links: primal brains

The weekend is a great time to catch up on some of the reading you skipped during the week.  We hope you enjoy this set of long-form links.

Investing

TR, “To invest on the basis that something is always about to go wrong is the sign of an intelligent investor.”  (The Psy-Fi Blog)

What do you really want to get out of the markets?  (Kirk Report)

James Montier’s suggested investment reading list.  (Big Picture)

A look at J. J. Butler’s Successful Stock Speculation.  (Finance Trends Matter)

Companies

Why McDonald’s ($MCD) wins in every economic environment.  (Fortune via The Browser)

A look at the “dollar store economy.”  (NYTimes)

Banks are still poised to wreck the global economy.  (Spiegel Online via naked capitalism)

The future of business is sharing, not selling.  (The Atlantic)

Economics

John Kay, “Economists – in government agencies as well as universities – were obsessively playing Grand Theft Auto while the world around them was falling apart.” (FT)

The Industrial Revolution was largely an energy revolution.  (voxEU)

What exactly are “Chinese banks“?  (naked capitalism)

What France needs to do to save itself.  (Business Insider)

Peter Thiel has his sights set higher than Silicon Valley.  (Details via @longreads)

Health

How increasing longevity is going to change everything in our society.  (WSJ)

On the benefits of stress management.  (Scientific American)

Education

Why our “primal brain” can struggle in the classroom.  (Scientific American)

Why are Finland’s schools successful?  (Smithsonian)

Sports

Why rich guys like own NBA teams.  (Grantland)

On the “fierce intimacy” of tennis rivalries.  (NYTimes)

Mixed media

On the coming “bifurcation in digital content.”  (TechCrunch)

How hard is it to get a cartoon into the New Yorker?  (Slate)

Thanks for checking in with Abnormal Returns. You can follow us on StockTwits and Twitter.

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Thursday links: past imperfect

Quote of the day

Phil Pearlman, “I view charts as a representation of market behavior, the only mode of market experience which can be objectively observed.  Future behavior can be derived imperfectly from past behavior.”  (Phil Pearlman)

Chart of the day

Emerging market equities have bounced.  What next?  (Afraid to Trade)

Markets

A look back at major asset class performance for August.  (Capital Spectator)

September seasonality.  (MarketSci Blog, Bespoke, Ticker Sense)

If 2011 is a repeat of 2010 then good times are still ahead.  (Bespoke also Humble Student)

Not sure what to make of recent sentiment numbers.   (Bespoke)

The stock market is increasingly reacting to financial conditions.  (CBS Moneywatch)

Short sellers piled on last month.  (FT)

The month-end rally likely helped a number of hedge funds.  (Dealbook)

Strategy

Finance blog traffic as a contrarian indicator.  (Big Picture)

How much longer can corporate profits diverge from the broader economy?  (Money Game)

A look at where a TAA model stands today.  (MarketSci Blog)

How to take advantage of elevated gold volatility.  (Tyler’s Trading)

More on the “diversification debate.”  (Above the Market)

Don’t buy a spinoff just because it is a spinoff.  (The Frog’s Kiss via @geoffgannon)

Companies

Good news for Greenlight Re ($GLRE) holders.  (Clusterstock, Dealbook, Dealbreaker)

On the prospects for oil refining margins.  (Climateer Investing)

Why the Feds need to approve the AT&T ($T) takeover of T-Mobile, but won’t. (SplatF, Bloomberg)

Could Warren Buffett’s investment in Bank of America ($BAC) backfire by eroding confidence?  (Dealbook, NetNet)

Three “dividend aristocrats” with 3% yields.  (YCharts)

Technology

Large cash hoards are killing technology valuations.  (The Tech Trade)

Why Apple ($AAPL) should kill off the iPod Touch.  (Daring Fireball)

Google ($GOOG) isn’t just buying a bunch of patents with Motorola Mobility ($MMI) they are also getting some tax breaks.  (Reuters)

Who might buy WebOS?  (TechInsidr)

A high profile solar startup, Solyndra fails.  (Term Sheet)

Low computing costs make a freemium business model possible.  (peHUB)

Funds

Giving Bill Gross a pass on current year performance.  (Felix Salmon)

Pimco is off to a slow start in the equity fund business.  (WSJ)

How much is too much tracking error?  (Wealthfront)

What money market mutual funds have been up to.  (FT Alphaville)

Count John Hancock as a potential new entrant into the world of ETFs.  (IndexUniverse)

The Doubleline Total Return Fund has attracted $10 billion in assets in just 16 months.  (Focus on Funds)

Mortgate REIT holders don’t like the idea of government-led mass refinancings.  (Focus on Funds)

Global

The German stock market is trading at a notable discount the US market.  (Buttonwood also IndexUniverse)

What Brazil’s surprise rate cut really means.  (The Reformed Broker also beyondbrics)

Economy

The ISM Manufacturing index is hanging around 50.  (Calculated Risk, Crossing Wall Street, EconomPic Data)

Unemployment claims continue to hang around 400,000.  (Calculated Risk, Capital Spectator)

Still no sign of a recession in retail store sales.  (Crackerjack Finance)

Getting people back to work is difficult and costly.  (The Source)

Welcome to the new freelance economy.  (The Atlantic)

Honest statistical models are hard to come by these days.  (A Dash of Insight)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

Media alert:  our upcoming appearance at the World MoneyShow Chicago.  (Abnormal Returns)

What you missed in our Thursday morning linkfest.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

If your financial “buffer” big enough?  (Aleph Blog)

Fine wine as a really alternative investment.  (CXO Advisory Group)

The Waffle House Index.  (WSJ))

Abnormal Returns is a founding member of the StockTwits Blog Network.

The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.

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Friday links: all that glitters

Quote of the day

“Thirty-four percent of Americans say gold is the best long-term investment, more than say so about four other types of investments.”  (Gallup via @EddyElfenbein)

Chart of the day

Don’t tell Tiffany & Co. ($TIF) the economy is bad.  (Money & Co.)

Markets

It takes some time for gold to rebuild momentum after a high volume correction.  (Tyler’s Trading)

The exchange merger trend has not played out as expected.  (the research puzzle)

The “hurricane trade” is played out.  (Phil Pearlman)

Stock returns around Labor Day.  (CXO Advisory Group)

Strategy

What hedge funds have been up to lately.  (Big Picture)

Jeffrey Gundlach likes cash.  (Bloomberg)

Six rules for investing in a down market.  (Monevator)

Why value investing is hard.  (Kiplinger’s)

Diversification works.  (Falkenblog)

What is the “rebalancing frown“?  (Vanguard)

Companies

Is two Apple’s ($AAPL) better than one?  (SAI)

A review of the Steve Jobs compensation story.  (footnoted)

Is Amazon ($AMZN) set to shake up tablet computer pricing?  (TechInsidr)

Groupon talks up the stock, without talking up the stock.  (Deal Journal)

Warren Buffett

Just because Warren Buffett is investing in Bank of America doesn’t mean you should.  (Deal Journal, UpsideTrader, Reuters, Marketwatch)

Why Warren Buffett is unlikely to up his stake in BYD.  (Jeff Matthews)

Finance

Goodbye HOLDRs, hello ETFs.  (WSJ)]

ETFs are all about speculation these days.  (CBS Moneywatch)

Activist hedge funds seem to get companies to change.  (All About Alpha)

Global

More on what it take to get Eurobonds to work.  (FT Alphaville)

Canadian regulators halt trading in Sino-Forest shares.  (Marketwatch)

Not all Chinese banks are created equal.  (beyondbrics)

Economy

2Q GDP revised down to 1.0%.  (Calculated Risk, Free exchange, Crossing Wall Street, Modeled Behavior)

Bernanke Jackson Hole speech reactions.  (Calculated Risk, Pragmatic Capitalism, Freakonomics, Mark Thoma, Real Time Economics, Modeled Behavior)

The ECRI WLI continues to signal weakness ahead.  (MarketBeat)

Keep an eye on market-based inflation forecasts.  (Capital Spectator)

Rail traffic shows sluggish growth.  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

Let’s distinguish between the short-term and long-term problems the US economy has.  (Big Picture)

Making distinctions between two very different kinds of innovation.  (Free exchange)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

Buy vs. build:  the ETF index decision.  (Abnormal Returns)

What you missed you in our Friday morning linkfest.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

You are not that unique.  Online financial planning is growing up.  (Businessweek)

“Decision fatigue” is a real thing.  (Farnam Street)

Abnormal Returns is a founding member of the StockTwits Blog Network.

The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.

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