Tuesday links: muni madness

• abnormalreturns
• November 16th, 2010

Quote of the day

Dan Seymour, “Many municipal ETFs now trade at significant discounts to the value of the bonds they hold. “  (Bond Buyer)

Chart of the day

Muni bonds continue to tank.  (Bespoke)

Markets

Are California bond sales freaking the muni market out?  (WSJ, Investing With Options, Money Game, Bloomberg, Business Insider)

More on the decline in muni bonds.  (Random Roger, ETFdb)

Take note.  Risk appetites have changed.  (StockTwits50)

Here’s a change of pace.  A pop in the VIX.  (VIX and More)

The VIX is still overpricing volatility.  (InvestorPlace also VIX and More)

Are futures margin hikes a symptom or the disease?  (Money Game, Zero Hedge)

Is it time for value stocks again?  (Dynamic Hedge)

Four new emerging market ETFs on the drawing board.  (ETFdb)

iShares goes ‘fully transparent’ with their planned actively managed ETFs.  (IndexUniverse)

High correlations not withstanding, markets are always evolving.  (FINalternatives)

Strategy and Tactics

The single biggest enemy of the minimalist trader is high overhead.  (Chicago Sean, ibid)

The role of systems testing.  (StockTwitsU)

How trading psychology plays a big role for all traders.  (Options for Rookies)

Big names

John Paulson (and David Tepper) have shrunk their bets on the big banks.  (Dealbook also CNBC)

What the biggest hedge funds have been buying and selling.  (WSJ, Reuters)

What does Warren Buffett see in Bank of New York (BK)?  (Street Capitalist, MarketBeat)

Taking a look at post-reorgnization equities.  (Distressed Debt Investing)

Companies

Caterpillar (CAT) is going to be a one-stop shop for mining equipment.  (Lex)

Point, counterpoint on OpenTable (OPEN).  (Felix Salmon earlier AR Screencast)

Facebook has taken a big step with its messaging strategy.  (GigaOM, TechCrunch also WSJ)

Finance

Doug Kass makes the case for GM.  (TheStreet also TRB, Deal Journal, Bloomberg)

Is the GM IPO a replay of the Blackstone Group (BX) IPO?  (DJ Market Talk)

Inside the forex-focused FXCM IPO.  (FT Alphaville)

The tech IPO is not dead.  It just needs the right companies.  (A VC)

Uh oh.  Harvard MBAs are headed back to Wall Street.  (Daniel Gross)

Has the worm finally turned for outside movie investors?  (NYTimes)

No wonder infrastructure investors don’t like the US.  (Dealbook)

Credit ratings are still “deeply embedded” in the financial system.  (WSJ)

QE2

Mark Thoma, “So that’s QEII. It’s nothing more than conventional monetary policy moved out along the yield curve.”  (CBS MoneyWatch)

Is QE2 inherently political?  (Felix Salmon)

QE2 is working, seriously.  (Real Time Economics, Money Game)

The wealth effect is greatly exaggerated.  (Big Picture)

Treasury yields now above where they were at the Jackson Hole speech.  (Pragmatic Capitalism, WSJ, FT Alphaville)

Economy

Industrial production was flattish in October. (Calculated Risk, Money Game)

Today not withstanding, applying Occam’s Razor gives us another explanation for the recent equity rally.  (AR Screencast)

What Wal-Mart (WMT) earnings tells us about the US economy.  (Money Game)

Why housing still has room to fall.  (Calculated Risk, ibid)

Economic growth is going to have to accelerate to meaningfully reduce unemployment.  (Fortune Finance)

Who is to blame for the financial crisis?  Everyone, according to McLean and Nocera.  (Tech Ticker)

Euroland

The Euro is falling for any number of reasons.  (Money Game, Bespoke also Points and Figures)

Why the German economy has bounced back.  (Free exchange)

Ireland:  liquidity crisis or solvency crisis?  (Credit Writedowns also Money Game)

Austria vs. Greece:  profligacy vs. obstinacy.  (FT Alphaville)

Just because

Our long national nightmare is over.  The Beatles are now on iTunes.  (GigaOM)

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