Quote of the day
Peter Coy, “For savers, today’s zero-rate world is the harshest of environments. The trick is to adapt to the circumstances and become a financial extremophile.” (Businessweek)
Chart of the day
Gold is once again below its 200-day moving average. (Bespoke, Global Macro Monitor)
Markets
Eddy’s 2013 Buy List is locked. (Crossing Wall Street)
Why is the market reaction to the failure of ‘Plan B‘ so negative? (A Dash of Insight)
What the silver/gold ratio is implying for stocks. (Market Anthropology)
Dual momentum investing with mutual funds. (Scott’s Investments)
Making money off the VIX term structure is not as easy as it looks. (MarketSci Blog)
Personal finance
Comparing online financial planners against their brick-and-mortar competition. (Businessweek)
What kind of investor are you? (Vanguard Blog)
Apple
Why Apple ($AAPL) isn’t going to have the “rug pulled from under them.” (Daring Fireball)
Apple does hardware and software, but can it get the cloud right? (FT)
Finance
Why NYSE Euronext ($NYX) had no other choice than to accede to the ICE ($ICE) deal. (Fortune, Dealbook, Businessweek)
Can CME Group ($CME) compete against the enlarged ICE? (WSJ)
A look at the Markel ($MKL)–Alterra ($ALTE) merger. (The Brooklyn Investor)
Are the credit ratings agencies “missing the mark” on sovereign credit ratings? (Bloomberg)
Hedge funds
Bill Ackman IS the short in Herbalife ($HLF) shares. (Focus on Funds)
Why have hedge fund returns dropped off? (Empiritrage)
Do we really want short-sellers to tout their positions in public? (II Alpha)
Hedge funds have gotten ‘addicted to momentum trading‘ much to their own detriment. (FT)
Citigroup ($C) is handing over its hedge fund unit to its managers. (Bloomberg)
Global
Can the Bank of Japan establish the credibility necessary to push up inflation? (Floyd Norris also Peter Tasker)
Why the world is buying more Japanese government debt. (Money Game)
Why does Canada have a strategic maple syrup reserve? (Wonkblog)
Economy
Capital goods orders for November shrugged off uncertainty over the fiscal cliff. (Money Game also Wonkblog)
The Chicago Fed National Activity Index for November bounced back. (Capital Spectator, GEI)
Measures of financial stress are back to pre-recession levels. (Carpe Diem)
Why household formation matters. (FT Alphaville)
Where America’s baby boom is (and isn’t). (New Geography)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
A guest post by Meena Krishnamsetty on “Why you should dump your hedge funds.” (Abnormal Returns)
Startupville
AngelList and SecondMarket are teaming up to make crowdfunding more of a reality. (Pando Daily)
What next for Hulu in a world of rising content acquisition costs? (WSJ)
Quora wants to get information out of people’s heads and onto the Internet. (SAI)
Twitter is taking the steps necessary to go public. (AllThingsD)
Thanks for checking in with Abnormal Returns. You can follow us on StockTwits and Twitter.
