Nothing says Christmas like a good investment book! So get the investment book lover on your list a copy of Abnormal Returns: Winning Strategies from the Frontlines of the Investment Blogosphere today.

Quote of the day

Tim Harford, “The efficient markets hypothesis is surely false. What is striking is that it is very close to being true. For the Warren Buffetts of the world, “almost true” is not true at all. For the rest of us, beating the market remains an elusive dream.”  (Tim Harford)

Chart of the day

Another overbought/oversold indicator: consecutive up/down days.  (Fireside Charts)

Markets

What should we make of persistent utilities weakness?  (Dynamic Hedge)

Expect a pick up in market chatter/noise this week.  (A Dash of Insight)

A look at where markets stand at week-end.  (Global Macro Monitor, ibid)

Investors are getting lured by ‘baby bonds.’  (Jason Zweig also Aleph Blog)

On the growing interest in low volatility funds.  (WSJ)

Strategy

Volatility and risk are not necessarily synonymous.  (Jack Schwager)

The true implications of being a gamma seller.  (The Zikomo Letter)

In praise of a Dylan Grice-inspired naive asset allocation strategy.  (Free exchange)

Why value investors should think about indexing.  (WSJ)

Going it alone makes it tough for traders and entrepreneurs.  (Points and Figures)

Personal finance

Flow, balances and the evolution of online personal finance tools.  (A VC)

Focus less on your taxes and more on making money.  (Points and Figures)

Not every online course passes the smell test. (Felix Salmon)

Technology

Retail prices are more dynamic now than ever before.  (WSJ)

The ‘industrial Internet’ is becoming a thing.  (NYTimes)

Keep an eye on Medium.  (ReadWrite)

The ‘great unbundling’ is happening before our very eyes.  (Information Arbitrage)

Deep learning is changing the way computers can do human-like tasks.  (NYTimes)

Global

The four biggest themes at the moment.  (Money Game)

Is Germany’s economy turning the corner.  (Sober Look)

China’s leading indicators continue to improve.  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

Dictators tend to put a big damper on frontier markets: the case of Egypt.  (Sober Look)

Japan

Japan’s famed export sector has gotten crushed by the higher Yen.  (WSJ)

The contrarian case for Japan’s stock market.  (Businessweek)

Economy

A healthy dose of Black Friday skepticism.  (Big Picture also Tim Duy)

Why the economic doomsayers were wrong.  (Money Game)

How much is it going to cost to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy?  (Bloomberg)

On the prospects for comprehensive tax reform.  (Floyd Norris)

A look back at the economic week that was.  (Bonddad Blog, Calculated Risk)

The economic schedule for the coming week.  (Calculated Risk)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

What you missed in our Saturday long form linkfest.  (Abnormal Returns)

Top clicks this week on the site.  (Abnormal Returns)

Books

Two takes on Nassim Taleb’s new book Antifragile: How to Live in a World We Don’t Understand.  (Gillian Tett, The Reformed Broker)

Tyler Cowen’s favorite books (fiction and nonfiction) of 2012 including Gone Girl and The Revenge of Geography.  (Marginal Revolution, ibid)

Investment books for everyone on your holiday list.  (Monevator)

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