The Visa IPO will be a boon for the underwriting syndicate. (WSJ.com, DealBook)

Is the small cap cycle over? (Crossing Wall Street)

Inflation up. Home prices down. (Capital Spectator, Big Picture)

Measuring your portfolio’s hidden commodities exposure. (HardAssetInvestor.com)

Most mergers fail. However, “Deals made at the very beginning of a merger cycle regularly succeed.” (NYTimes.com)

Bond market volatility is on the rise. (MarketBeat)

“But the main reason why triple-A debt is so popular is very simple: there is a huge number of investors out there who have neither the ability nor the inclination to do detailed credit analysis on every bond they buy.” (Market Movers)

“But it looks like now could be the time for big and patient investors (such as Warren Buffett) to start snapping up relatively good-quality credit.” (FT Alphaville)

Getting scared silly by market pundits. (Dash of Insight)

Did the banks exaggerate their writeoffs? (TheStreet.com)

Peak gasoline demand? Not so fast. (Bill Rempel)

The Nasdaq wants in on the boom in SPAC issuance. (Deal Journal)

MBIA CDS prices show some improvement. (Alea)

“Think for yourself and act accordingly” is the message from Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva‘s book, “Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets.” (Finance Trends Matter)

The disconcerting impact of CEO stock sales. (Odd Numbers)

“When one facet of a situation becomes highly salient to us, we overweight it in our perception and information processing.” (TraderFeed)

“Are private equity firms that charge 20 percent carried interest leaving money on the table?” (DealBook)

Information assymmetries abound when hedge funds venture to Hollywood. (Going Private)

Dissecting the bond yield conundrum. (Economist’s View)

“The bottom line: financial globalization may have proceeded far among the industrial countries, but for the emerging markets, there still appear to be some impediments to the free flow of financial capital.” (Econbrowser)

We have an irrational need to keep our options open. (TierneyLab)

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