There was a plethora of interesting posts out there today on the first business day of the year. A sampling follows.

The beginning of the month is not complete without a visit to FundAlarm for their highlights and commentary on the mutual fund world.

Mark Hulbert at Marketwatch.com notes there is little historical evidence to tell us what a new Fed chairman will mean for the stock market.

Matthew Goldstein at TheStreet.com takes a behind the scenes look at the strategy driving the returns at a major hedge fund.

Matthew Lynn at Bloomberg.com asks some interesting questions about the role of blogs in the new financial order. Controlled Greed appreciates the focus on financial bloggers as well.

John Wasik at Bloomberg.com posits that investors would be better served by a broadly diversified, low cost, ETF strategy rather than focusing on individual stock bets. This “Nano Investment Plan” can be followed in an auto-pilot fashion freeing up time for more interesting matters.

In contrast to some who are predicting a bankruptcy filing for General Motors (GM), Timothy Middleton at MSN Money finds something to like at GM. Middleton has kind things to say about the investment options in GM’s 401(k) plan and notes that these assets would be protected in the case of a filing.

Matt Stichnoch at Bankstocks.com likes the message of Joel Greenblatt’s book that has gotten a great deal of publicity including here.

N. Gregory Mankiw, former chairman of Pres. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors, in the Wall Street Journal has a common sense list of economic resolutions for politicians to abide by in 2006. Frankly, we like #6 of 7 which proposes to eliminate the penny. Dan Gross thinks Mankiw should have been emphasizing these common sense points while he was in a position of power.

If you are interested in continuing to read posts like this then please feel free to sign up for our RSS feed.