Great insight from James Picerno at the Capital Spectator on investors’ diversification into a wider spectrum of asset classes.

Eddy Elfenbein, DealBook and FT Alphaville on China’s investment in the Blackstone Group IPO.

Henny Sender at WSJ.com on Merrill Lynch’s acquisition in the hedge fund business, or is it an expansion of its investment banking business?

Calculated Risk moves afield to comment on the current state of cheap debt and mergers and acquisitions.

The U.S. stock market continues to lag the rest of the world. (via Bespoke Investment Group)

The Ticker Sense Blogger Sentiment Poll shows a muddled sentiment picture.

Roger Ehrenberg at Information Arbitrage on the dividend vs. buyback debate.

Zac Bissonnette at BloggingStocks.com notes a “must read” article by value investor Whitney Tilson.

Greg Newton and FT Alphaville on some odd (and self-serving) comments by Robert Merton.

Tom Lydon at ETF Trends collects a number of articles on the growing list of “green” ETFs.

CXO Advisory Group on research showing customer satisfaction factors into stock price performance.

John Hussman at Hussman Funds writes, “Statistically, the Fed Model simply doesn’t work.”

All About Alpha on the challenges of kurtosis and the feasibility of hedge fund replication.

IndexUniverse.com has been re-launched including a new blog.

Kevin Grier at Marginal Revolution on the perverse effects of government policy on corn prices and what we feed our pigs.

Abnormal Returns with some random observations on inflation.

Kevin Kelleher at GigaOM.com asks, “Did Microsoft go lose its head over aQuantive?”

For all you Apple (AAPL) stock junkies The Unofficial Apple Weblog notes the imminent launch of an all-Apple stock site.

James Surowiecki in the New Yorker on “feature creep” and why technology isn’t making our lives easier.

The Stalwart beat us to this interesting post on horse race betting by Steve Walters at the Wages of Wins blog.

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