Quote of the day

Jason Zweig, “In short, a little bit of extra return isn’t nearly as valuable in a low-rate world as people intuitively believe it to be.”  (WSJ)

Chart of the day

^SPX Chart

^SPX data by YCharts

The S&P 500 is higher than any point since the end of 2007.  (Crossing Wall Street)

Markets

Signs that the market is overbought.  (Bespoke, Investing With Options, Howard Lindzon)

Small caps continue to lead the market higher.  (StockCharts Blog)

How much farther does the risk-on trade have to go?  (Dynamic  Hedge)

The VIX plunged last week.  (Global Macro Monitor)

Junk bonds now yield below 6%.  (MarketBeat, FT)

MLPs have seen their very own January effect already this year.  (Income Investing)

With the fiscal cliff out of the way, earnings season is now upon us.  (A Dash of Insight)

Strategy

Testing an “absolute value” asset allocation strategy.  (dshort)

Why you shouldn’t depend on the government to bail you out of your short position.  (Bronte Capital)

Trading is tough. Is it worth the sacrifice?  (SMB Capital)

Finance

Crowdfunding will include loans as well as equity.  (NYTimes)

What does the staying power of Lending Club say about the future of peer-to-peer lending?  (Economist)

Global

Whatever happened to ever-rising potash prices?  (Quartz)

Why governments love to fiddle with inflation-indexed benefits.  (Free exchange)

Economy

Construction and service employment are doing alright.  (Calafia Beach Pundit, Global Macro Monitor, The Reformed Broker)

The trillion dollar coin idea explained.  (Interfluidity)

How the benefits of Pigovian taxes add up over time.  (NYTimes)

A look back at the week in economic stats.  (Bonddad Blog, Calculated Risk)

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

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

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

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

Mixed media

How podcasting might change in 2013.  (AllThingsD)

Hulu succeeded in spite of itself. What now?  (GigaOM, Pando Daily)

Google ($GOOG) is playing the long game, and winning, with Google+.  (Brad Feld)

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