Susanne Craig and Dennis K. Berman at Wall Street Journal compares a soon-to-be public Blackstone Group to Goldman Sachs (GS).

Bess Levin at DealBreaker.com has more on this power showdown.

Chad Brand at the Peridot Capitalist on the “four billion” reasons why Blackstone wants to come public.

Zachary Kouwe in the New York Post notes another reason Blackstone plans to come public, “hiring and recruiting new employees.”

breakingviews.com takes a closer look at Blackstone’s prospective valuation.

Andrew Ross Sorkin in the New York Times on the surge of philanthropy for the newly uber-wealthy private equity professionals.

James Picerno at the Capital Spectator on recent asset class performance trends.

Laurence C. Strauss in Barron’s on the importance of knowing what is inside of your “long/short fund.”

All About Alpha on an inherent weakness in hedge fund clones.

Does CEO mansion size affect stock peformance? (via Informed Reader)

Jaime Peters at Morningstar.com has more investing tips from all-star managers.

David Adler in Barron’s on why it takes so long for insights from academic finance to “trickle down” to practitioners.

J. Alex Tarquino in the New York Times on the attraction of preferred stocks to yield-hungry investors.

Jeff Miller at A Dash of Insight some signs of economic strength.

Barry Ritholtz at the Big Picture reminds us that billionaires invest for some very different reasons that the man on the street.

John Taglibue in the New York Times on the challenges facing the Swiss private banking industry.

Brett Steenbarger at TraderFeed discusses “three steps toward successful stock picking.”

Do you want to invest alongside the Harvard endowment fund? (via Wall Street Journal)

Curtis M. Faith at Way of the Turtle has more on the sensitivity of back-tests.

Alana Semuels in the Los Angeles Times on the role bloggers played in identifying the housing bubble.

Paul Kedrosky at Infectious Greed on the chance for long-term housing price weakness.

Om Malik at GigaOm notes the “dangerous trend” of technology companies coming to market that drip “red ink.”

Scott Adams at the Dilbert Blog with his “Happiness Formula” and his “9-Point Investment Plan.”

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