Quote of the day

Carl Richards, “The smartest people I know are the the ones who understand that they don’t know everything and put policies in place to protect themselves from their own ignorance.”  (Bucks Blog)

Chart of the day

Gold ETF VIX Chart

Gold ETF VIX data by YCharts

Why buy gold when you can buy gold volatility? (Focus on Funds)

Markets

The equity markets have been pretty resilient of late. Maybe it’s time for a new analog.  (Market Anthropology)

There is a fundamental mismatch in the $VIX futures market.  (FT Alphaville)

Is the forex market broken?  (MarketBeat)

In search of a natural gas trade.  (Kid Dynamite)

Strategy

Speak Austrian, trade Keynesian.  (Money Game)

Three good book recommendations on behavioral finance from Derek Hernquist.  (StockTwitsU)

Ten value investing blogs worth a read.  (Old School Value)

Companies

What if Facebook ($FB) isn’t that special after all?  (GigaOM)

A look at the market’s obsession with Apple ($AAPL) stock.  (FT)

The decline of mobile phone makers illustrated.  (Asymco)

The enduring mystery of RadioShack ($RSH).  (MarketBeat)

Television stations are on a slow slide to oblivion.  (WashingtonPost also The Atlantic)

Governance

Have CFOs learned their lesson when it comes to buybacks?  (WSJ)

The Chesapeake Energy ($CHK) story just keeps on getting worse.  (Money Game, footnoted)

What sort of penalties is Wal-Mart ($WMT) facing?  (Fortune, Time)

Companies must be pretty hard up if they are keeping these guys on their boards.  (Dealbook)

Finance

Four reasons why crowdfunding won’t work.  (HBR)

Money market fund managers are providing their services for free these days.  (The Reformed Broker)

Just how much of hedge fund returns have managers kept?  (Insider Monkey)

Given their portfolios how are insurers going to earn returns going forward?  (Sober Look)

With more cuts coming, investment bankers are feeling “frustrated and underappreciated.”  (WSJ)

30 years ago the financial world changed: the CME began trading S&P 500 futures.  (Chicago Sean)

ETFs

When an investment niche gets overcrowded:  the case of MLP ETPs.  (InvestmentNews, IndexUniverse)

Pimco is adding a global inflation-linked debt fund to its actively managed ETF roster.  (Bloomberg)

Axel Merk wants to get in on the gold ETF action.  (IndexUniverse)

Global

Why the Euro is still doomed.  (The Atlantic)

Is Germany ready to give up on austerity?  (Money Game)

Why UK GDP growth continues to lag.  (Gavyn Davies)

Wow. Net migration from Mexico is now nearly zero.  (WSJ)

Watch Africa as the next source of incremental demand for oil.  (Gregor Macdonald)

Economy

Keynes was right. Austerity doesn’t work.  (Henry Blodget also Joseph Stiglitz)

Conflicting data on housing including Case-Shiller housing numbers.  (Calculated Risk, ibid)

Housing prices are back to late 1990s or early 2000s levels.  (Calculated Risk)

The BPP@MIT indicator shows inflation dropping.  (Carpe Diem)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

A series of questions with Steven Sears, author of The Indomitable Investor on the need for having a “risk first” approach to investing and value of the financial media.  (Abnormal Returns, part 2)

The Abnormal Returns blog tour rolls on: the podcast editions.  (Abnormal Returns)

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

I had a chance to speak with John Mihalijavec of The Manual of Ideas about investment blogging and the book.  (GreatInvestors.tv)

Generations

It sucks to be Generation X.  (HBR)

More signs that financial illiteracy is a widepread problem for Gen Y.  (USA Today)

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