Eddy Elfenbein at Crossing Wall Street refreshes our memory on the presidential election cycle on the stock market and the “implied electability” of various presidential candidates.

John Kimelman at Barrons.com talks with Greg Valliere on the role of the presidential election on the markets.

Workers at General Motors (GM) are on strike. Why are there strikes in the first place? What does it mean for the economy? Does this strike make sense?

Why are the emerging markets and large-caps rallying at the same time? (FT Alphaville)

Ryan McLean at Morningstar.com with an interesting comparison of two firms’ earnings.

Aaron Pressman at BusinessWeek.com on research into the signals, or lack thereof, a dividend cut sends.

Have hedge funds grown more dangerous since the LTCM blow-up? (FT Alphaville)

Negative house price trends are set to continue. (Big Picture)

Is the Chicago Fed National Activity Index signaling a recession? (Bespoke Investment Group)

Accrued Interest on how to reform/restore confidence in the CDO market.

What is happening to merger arb spreads? (Deal Journal)

Brett Steenbarger at TraderFeed writes “It may not be losing that damages traders, but unacknowledged losing.”

James Picerno at the Capital Spectator highlights a new commodity ETF that looks to optimize returns via the management of future contracts.

The Q-Group line-up is all about alpha. (All About Alpha)

Nick Schulz at American.com has a profile of online financial planning outfit financial engines.

Eric Savitz at Tech Trader Daily on the future of Facebook.com.

Should Facebook heed the historical evidence that monetizing social networks is difficult at best? (WSJ.com)

Menzie Chinn at Econbrowser on what stagflation might mean for the U.S. dollar.

Alea highlights a paper on how magicians protect intellectual capital without law(s).

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