The Federal Reserve decided to raise the Fed funds rate to 4.50% today with some language leaving open the possibility of another hike down the road. With that in mind here are a few links to peruse.

Chet Currier at Bloomberg.com on why “the hunt for alpha” is the only legitimate goal of money managers.

John Dorfman at Bloomberg.com on the “January Effect” and the “January Barometer.”

Timothy Middleton at MSN Money on why 2006 is going to be a better year for income investors.

Mark Hulbert at Marketwatch.com on what hot IPOs, like Chipotle (CMG), mean for the overall health of the market.

Roger Nusbaum at TheStreet.com on why the Swiss stock market could be a safe haven for global investors.

macroblog on the current market probabilities for Fed rate changes including March and May. The market is not expecting a further rate hike in May.

Howard Simons at RealMoney.com on why commodity related stocks have risen far beyond normal bounds.

The Stalwart tracked down an interesting paper on the existence of a “risk premium” in the commodities market.

Crossing Wall Street finds an academic paper that finds a real live positive relationship between risk and expected returns.

The Chairman may be gone, but he is not yet forgotten. Barry Ritholtz at TheStreet.com discusses the many myths that have arisen around the Greenspan era. Daniel Gross at Slate.com writes on the death of democracy under Greenspan and the difficulties Bernanke might face in his new role. We found more thoughts on the Greenspan in an earlier post.

Daniel Drezner notes that multilateralism seems to be taking hold among the major powers.

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