Quote of the day

David Rosenberg: “The LTRO kicked the can.” Cullen Roche: “The LTRO kicked the can really hard.”  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

Chart of the day

The end of the $GAZ bubble.  (Focus on Funds)

Markets

Why do you think an investment question can be solved with a single variable?  (Big Picture)

A look at how the big stocks in some leading sectors are performing.  (Afraid to Trade)

Any way you slice the industrial metal stocks look awful.  (The Reformed Broker)

Another sign that risk on is still on.  (Crossing Wall Street)

Are companies becoming better market timers?  (Market Blog also Fortune)

Strategy

What it really means when you buy a straddle. (Tyler’s Trading)

Bill Gross on how to generate yield in a low-yield environment.  (Market Folly, Credit Writedowns)

How value investors operate in turbulent markets. In short, the same way as always.  (AdvisorOne)

A nice review for the “well written and thoughtful” The Indomitable Investor by Steven M. Sears.  (Reading the Markets)

Indexing

Rebalancing your portfolio is getting easier.  (Capital Spectator)

Why Wall Street hates “lazy portfolio strategies.”  (SmartMoney)

Are index funds an inadequate solution for the economy as a whole?  (The Atlantic)

Research

Excitement, experimental economics and the formation of bubbles.  (Noahpinion)

Investors are just as bad at factor timing with ETFs as they are at stock picking.  (SSRN via @jasonzweigwsj)

Does weather, i.e. mood, affect trading behavior?  (SSRN via @FrankPartnoy)

The effects of regret lead to worse outcomes for investors.  (SSRN)

Tactical asset allocation using relative strength.  (SSRN via CXOAG)

Companies

Mark Zuckerberg has already told potential Facebook ($FB) investors what he plans to do.  (Henry Blodget)

The TV of the future is already here, Apple ($AAPL), and it is called Xbox.  (Slate also Reuters)

An alternative yield idea in Main Street Capital ($MAIN).  (Jon D. Markman)

ETFs

The Pimco Total Return ETF ($TRXT) is trading up to a better ticker.  (IndexUniverse)

An illustration of why $VIX ETPs are short-term instruments.  (VIX and More)

“Hedge fund ETFs” will rise and fall based on their methodology.  (World Beta)

Economy

Durable goods orders for February were no great shakes.  (MarketBeat, Capital Spectator)

A linkfest looking at the global macro economy.  (HistorySquared)

Trucking ticks up in February.  (Calculated Risk)

More doubts about the high profile ECRI recession call.  (Modeled Behavior)

Just in case you didn’t think the US was in the midst of a balance sheet recession.  (FT Alphaville)

Wonk alert: on the relationship between the Taylor Rule and nominal GDP targeting.  (Economist’s View)

Why some multinationals pay such low taxes.  (Justin Fox)

Is Chairman Bernanke overexposed?  (Real Time Economics)

Is the “Guy Rate” a better measure of the economy than the unemployment rate?  (Brett Arends)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

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

Mixed media

In praise of mediocrity.  (Slate)

Learning code is the new second language.  (NYTimes)

The StockTwits “network of networks” keeps growing.  (Howard Lindzon)

The attraction of the Internet’s “cult of now.”  (big think)

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