Please note that Abnormal Returns will be on hiatus the rest of the week. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Neuroeconomics hits Wall Street and finds that “the riskier the trades get, the more the brain craves them.” (NYTimes.com)

Is the Justice Department going to put the hurt on a CME-NYMEX merger? (Deal Journal, NakedShorts)

The challenge for hedge funds to attract talent and to develop novel investment strategies. (FT.com)

Sector correlations have ticked up in this more volatile (and nervous) environment. (Bespoke Investment Group)

Backing into a blogger’s asset allocation. (InVivoAnalytics.com)

Timely insider selling (and buying) in the homebuilder stocks. (Bespoke Investment Group)

Higher costs and lower tax efficiency make the case for actively managed ETFs more difficult. (WSJ.com)

One public hedge fund is reporting good news. (DealBook, WSJ.com)

Ample liquidity, but little interest in putting it to work. (MarketBeat)

“The credit rating agencies have no business rating structured finance, new scale or not.” (Alea)

The monoline bond insurers may have to go into “runoff mode.” (naked capitalism, FT Alphaville)

Structural issues remain in the development of the Asian bond markets. (FT Alphaville)

The Black Swan is a “fascinating, albeit infuriating book.” (Crossing Wall Street)

“Remain independent. It’s your money, not theirs.” (TheStreet.com)

“We normally think of success as bringing happiness, but the research concludes that the line of causation goes the other way as well: happiness brings success.” (TraderFeed)

Managerial overconfidence in the C-suite. (USNews.com)

U.S. wireless operators are emphasizing data over voice. (GigaOm)

Economists hadn’t paid too much attention to the ISM non-manufacturing survey…until this week. (Econbrowser)

Two proposals for the finance blogosphere. (Market Movers, Crossing Wall Street)

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