Quote of the day
Reid Hastie, “Just as we are wired to like a diet rich in fats and sugars, we have an appetite for simple, coherent narratives. Neither habit is good for our long-term health.” (Bloomberg)
Chart of the day
JP Morgan ($JPM) was having a good year until yesterday.
Bonds
A profile of “bond savant” Jeffrey Gundlach. (Businessweek)
Talk about doubling down on your bond bet…the duration of the Barclays US Aggregate Bond Index is hovering near its high. (research puzzle pix)
Investors are likely unaware of current bond math. (Barron’s)
Bond market timers just aren’t that good. (Mark Hulbert)
Why isn’t the US Treasury locking in lower long term interest rates while they can? (Barron’s)
Strategy
Individual investors are on a roll of late. (Bespoke)
What business do individuals have picking stocks? (Random Roger)
Stale data sucks. (Falkenblog)
You can’t trade successfully if your life is in “disequilibrium.” (StockCharts Blog)
Companies
How Amazon ($AMZN) could compete in the world of high fashion. (Virginia Postrel)
No wonder Chesapeake Energy ($CHK) board members don’t want to lose their jobs. (footnoted)
How Kickstarter is changing shopping. (SAI)
JP Morgan
We have no idea what is going on in the balance of big banks like JP Morgan. (Kid Dynamite)
How the London Whale’s “hedges” went wrong. (FT Alphaville)
No one should be particularly surprised this happened. (Information Arbitrage)
Some one has to be (profitably) on the other side of the trade with JP Morgan. (Deal Journal)
Making the case to double-down on JP Morgan in light of these issues. (Doug Kass)
This situation is all the worse because everyone trusted Jamie Dimon. (WSJ, Finance Addict)
A simple explainer on what just happened at JP Morgan. (Marketplace)
How to prevent this from happening again. (Henry Blodget)
JP Morgan pushed Apple aside on the social media heatmap. (Phil Pearlman)
This is why everyone hates the big banks. (Stock Sage)
Finance
In praise of “dumb rules” to mitigate model risk. (Felix Salmon)
Moody’s is putting global banks on notice: credit downgrades await. (FT)
The case for global accounting rules. (Floyd Norris)
Is the venture capital market really “broken”? (Dan Primack)
Interviews with Julian Robertson and Jim Chanos. (Market Folly)
ETFs
The ETF Deathwatch for May 2012 keeps growing. (Invest with an Edge)
Van Eck looks to be moving towards proprietary indices for some of its funds. (IndexUniverse)
On the attraction of target date maturity bond ETFs which we talk up in our new book. (Morningstar)
Global
The ugly picture that is Chinese banks. (Bloomberg)
Banks are getting ready for the return of the drachma. (Reuters)
How the dominos are set up for a Greek exit. (Free exchange)
The contrarian case to buy Europe. (FT Alphaville)
Why Russian companies love to IPO in London. (Businessweek)
Economy
Investors are taking the idea of “financial repression” to heart. (FT)
Where did all the construction jobs go? (FT Alphaville)
Rail traffic is still posting modest growth. (Pragmatic Capitalism)
Why NAFTA matters. (Bonddad Blog)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
What you missed in our Friday morning linkfest. (Abnormal Returns)
Mixed media
In praise of the Grumpy Old Accountants. (Covestor)
In praise of The Risk of Trading: Mastering the Most Important Element in Financial Speculation by Michael Toma. (Reading the Markets)
In praise of Clayton Christensen’s new “self-help book that is not a self-help book” How Will You Measure Your Life? (FT)
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