If you need some holiday gift ideas for the business book reader in your family, Jay Palmer in Barron’s highlights the “Best Books of 2005.”

Eric J. Savitz and Michael Santoli in “The Trader” column in Barron’s touch on a familiar theme to readers of this blog. During this recent rally megacap stocks have become increasingly attractive versus small-caps.

Tobias Levkovich, strategist at Citigroup, has noted that the price/earnings multiple of mega-cap stocks (the biggest 25 in the S&P 500) is at a 20-year low relative to the overall S&P 500. Relatedly, the mega-caps’ relative dividend yield is also at a two-decade high.

Aaron Task over at TheStreet.com notes this same trend and finds value in growth versus value.

Lawrence C. Strauss and Jack Willoughby in Barron’s compare open-end mutual funds that are focused on generating returns based on various commodity indices. One pitfall of many of these funds is that nearly all of their returns are short-term in nature, making them tax-unfriendly.

More academic research is coming out focusing on the link between investor mood and stock market returns. “Sports sentiment and stock returns” by Edmans, Garcia and Norli find that after a country’s soccer team loses in World Cup games the national stock market tends to decline the next day.

Yet another story on whether Bill Miller will keep his market-beating streak alive in 2005.

As the hot stove warms up, Chris Isidore of CNNMoney.com profiles Wall Street’s favorite sports executive, Billy Beane. According to Beane the major league market for talent has become more efficient with teams paying up for players with high on-base averages. This will make it more difficult for small market teams, like Beane’s Oakland Athletics, to find (and pay for) talent.

Mark Hulbert in Barron’s notes the global launch of fundamental indices, and generally likes what he sees. Rob Arnott defends his indices from critics over at ETFInvestor.com.

Roger Nusbaum, who covers the ETF world like a blanket, finds some worthwhile ETF portfolio research from S&P. Nusbaum believes “There are currently too few people and web sites offering real insight about ETFs.”

James Altucher at RealMoney.com found one of our posts interesting enough to make RealMoney’s Blog Watch.