February was a bad month for consumer confidence.  (The Money Game, EconomPic Data, Zero Hedge)

What happens to the stock market after consumer confidence tanks.  (Big Picture, Bespoke)

Mark Hulbert, “It turns out, in fact, that consumers are a great contrarian indicator. They feel the best at the end of economic expansions, just when they should be becoming more cautious. And they feel their worst at the depth of recessions.”  (Marketwatch)

The many myths of Warren Buffett.  (The Pragmatic Capitalist, Kid Dynamite)

Why the IPO market has stunk it up in 2010.  (peHUB)

Top stock holdings of hedge funds.  (market folly)

Hedge funds have fallen out of love with technology stocks.  (The Money Game)

Now that is a share buyback program.  Sears Holdings (SHLD) has shrunk its shares outstanding 30% since 2005.  (Bespoke)

Citigroup (C) is looking to get out of the hedge fund of funds business.  (WSJ)

The SEC votes to halt short sales in stocks already down 10% on the day.  (BusinessWeek)

NBBO is not all that matters for brokerage costs.  (Bloomberg)

Legg Mason (LM) is joining the rush to launch actively managed ETFs.  (Morningstar)

Fees on fees.  The the new PowerShares CEF Income Composite Portfolio (PCEF).  (IndexUniverse)

Another notable portfolio manager is entering the go-anywhere mutual fund game.  (WSJ)

The effect of corporate news on stock prices.  (CXO Advisory Group)

Why do prices cluster around round numbers?  (The Psy-Fi Blog)

Why the stocks of obviously bankrupt companies don’t trade at $0.  (DFA)

Good work if you can get it.  CSFB bankers clean up with “toxic bonuses.”  (WSJ)

Japan is operating under a “false axiom” that will one day end.  (Contrarian Edge)

Why you still need to keep an eye on the Nikkei.  (The Money Game)

The US dollar was left for dead.  Why it is still the world’s #1 currency.  (Curious Capitalist)

Ken Rogoff is not optimistic about the Chinese economy.  (Bloomberg)

The IMF cannot help Greece.  (Baseline Scenario)

Felix Salmon, “But buying CDS protection is not really equivalent to shorting a stock — it’s much closer to buying a put option on a stock.”  (Reuters)

How one hedge fund won betting against Europe.  (WSJ)

Joshua Brown, “One of my favorite reforms instituted by Mary Shapiro‘s new SEC is the curtailing of the Broker Proxy Vote.”  (The Reformed Broker)

The Volcker Rule we hardly knew ya.  (naked capitalism)

Terrible existing home sales figures.  (DJ Market Talk, Money & Co., Bespoke)

More looks at the Case-Shiller home price data.  (Calculated Risk, Atlantic Business)

The price-to-rent ratio “suggests that house prices are still a little too high on a national basis. But it does appear that prices are much closer to the bottom than the top.”  (Calculated Risk, ibid)

24% of residential home loans are underwater.  (24/7 Wall St.)

With the US flush with natural gas, Canada now has a oversupply problem.  (The Money Game)

Can California be trusted to spend its funds on high speed rail?  (Fortune)

In defense of financial speculation.  (WSJ)

Momentum, market underreaction and sports betting.  (SSRN)

Happy third blogiversary to David Merkel.  (Aleph Blog)

Who knew they still published SmartMoney?  (DealBook)

James Surowiecki, “The real problem is not complex: there’s too much venture capital, and there are too many venture capitalists, for the industry to be really profitable.”  (Technology Review)

How the Google algorithm rules the Web.  (Wired)

The paradox of toil.  (Infectious Greed)

Are great investors night owls or morning larks?  (Simoleon Sense)

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