Quote of the day

John Aziz, “It’s wise to remember that investment in “innovative financial products” like mortgage-backed securities — which is how so many people got screwed — isn’t the same thing as investment in productive businesses through the stock market.”  (The Week)

Chart of the day

Oil prices are breaking out.  (StockCharts Blog)

Markets

Why lower bond yields should lead to higher gold and silver prices.  (Market Anthropology)

Why the run in the Euro may be over.  (All Star Charts)

How to profit from a quiet VIX.  (Bill Luby)

More Japanese stocks are looking cheap.  (Big Picture)

Strategy

Cullen Roche, “You’re much more likely to become wealthy investing in your own ability to generate future production than you are by buying an asset that was actually someone else’s investment.”  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

On the use of momentum across and within industries.  (Millenial Invest)

Where’s your confirmation bias in today’s market?  (Pension Partners)

Personal finance

Competition is fierce to manage the money of new tech millionaires.  (Reuters)

Why would any one buy a non-traded REIT?  (The Reformed Broker)

Why investors should avoid retail-focused private equity investments.  (Minyanville)

Companies

Timothy B. Lee, “A tablet that does everything a PC can do is just a laptop.”  (Vox)

Samsung and Apple ($AAPL) are the only companies with clout in smartphones.  (TechCrunch)

What if Microsoft ($MSFT) had held onto its stake in Apple?  (TUAW)

Why Microsoft should get out of the Surface business.  (stratchery)

Can Spotify ever make a profit?  (Slate)

China’s JD.com ($JD) despite some issue had a successful IPO.  (Dealbook, Breakingviews)

Finance

Junk bond buyers are giving up basic protections.  (FT)

Now you can buy meteor-related catastrophe bonds.  (MoneyBeat)

Hedge funds

Noah Smith, “Why would people expect hedge funds to deliver superior returns in the first place?”  (Bloomberg View)

Want to buy 20% of D. E. Shaw? You can, but it’s complicated.  (Dealbook)

HFT

In defense of high frequency trading.  (Cliff Asness et al,)

High frequency trading has crossed over into the world of fiction in Rogue Code by Microsoft engineer turned novelist Mark Russinovich. (MoneyBeat)

Funds

Russ Kinnel, “Fees matter in bull markets and bear markets. In growth and value markets, fees still matter.”  (Morningstar)

Why ETF investors should avoid market orders.  (ETF)

Not all risk parity strategies are created alike.  (MPI)

Economy

Weekly initial unemployment claims popped higher last week.  (Calculated Risk)

A sad day for patent reform.  (A VC)

Why is Econ 101 so bad?  (Noah Smith)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

50 blogs every serious trader should read.  (TraderHQ)

What you may have missed in our Wednesday linkfest.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

Your high school GPA matters for your future earnings.  (WashingtonPost)

Americans are not as busy as they think they are.  (The Atlantic)

Five questions to ask before buying a house.  (The Upshot, ibid)

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