Quote of the day

The Analyst, “On Wall Street there are no short cuts – you should do your own homework before blindly chasing stocks that appear in 13Fs.”  (Stone Street Advisors via Tradestreaming)

Chart of the day

Consumer confidence reaches a post-financial crisis high, but still has a ways to go.  (Calafia Beach Pundit also Bloomberg, EconomPic Data)

Markets

Quality stocks are cheap, out of favor and under accumulation by some smart managers.  (Morningstar)

Putting the decline in the S&P 500 VIX Short-term Futures Total Return ETN (VXX) into perspective.  (MarketSci Blog)

Steven Place, “Volatility in markets tends to cluster, and volatility begets volatility.”  (Investing With Options)

Strategy

Tom Brakke, “There are many species of investors and their migratory patterns differ dramatically. ”  (the research puzzle)

Know what you own.  The situation around the Market Vectors Egypt ETF (EGPT).  (Kid Dynamite)

A more detailed look at the Shiller normalized P/E debate.  (Value Restoration Project)

Commodities

Divergence alert:  copper down, oil up.  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

Are the Saudis still a swing producer?  (Street Sweep)

Grain inventories are at multi-decade lows.  (Bloomberg)

Emerging market resource exporters have seen their currencies surge, to the detriment of other sectors.  (beyondbrics)

Finance

Hedge fund start-ups slow as investors favor larger managers.  (Bloomberg)

In praise of the “just say no” takeover defense.  (Breakingviews)

The parallels between the Glencore and Goldman Sachs (GS) IPOs.  (Breakingviews)

Takeaway from the Wharton Restructuring Conference – we are experiencing another credit bubble.  (Distressed Debt Investing)

Preventing future flash crashes involves more data.  Can the Feds handle this ‘big data’ problem?  (Fortune Finance)

China

The financial system remains a big risk to China’s economic model. (FT Alphaville)

How China bears are getting their exposure. (FT Alphaville)

New mega-container ships designed solely for China-Europe trade.  (The Guardian)

Economy

The (Case-Shiller) double-dip in housing prices illustrated.  (Calculated Risk, EconomPic Data, Free exchange)

Four reasons why housing prices are likely to continue to fall.  (Planet Money)

How long until the Fed raises interest rates?  (Calculated Risk, Mark Thoma)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

On the peril of position sizing: year-to date cocoa has surged, but ‘Choc Finger’ apparently hasn’t profited.  (AR Screencast)

Our Tuesday morning live link look-in.  (Abnormal Returns)

Errata

Amazon (AMZN) is taking on Netflix (NFLX) on its home turf.  (paidcontent, TechCrunch, Media Memo, SAI)

The (unhealthy) obsession with next.  (37signals)

Thanks for checking in with Abnormal Returns. For all the latest you can follow us on StockTwits and Twitter.