Being public has been a headache for any number of alternative asset firms.  (WSJ.com)

While convoluted, there are a number of advantages for KKR in their roundabout IPO plan.  (Deal Journal also Curious Capitalist)

What did Merrill Lynch (MER) know, and when did they know it?  (FT Alphaville)

“CEOs don’t matter: if the company is going down the toilet, neither John Thain nor anybody else is going to prevent it from doing so.”  (Market Movers also Big Picture)

Everybody and their brother is trying to raise a ‘distressed’ or ‘dislocation’ fund to take advantage of the carnage in the financial sector.  (WSJ.com)

The phrase of the day:  covered bonds.  (Aleph Blog, ClusterStock, Interfluidity, Market Movers)

“Is Goldman, Sachs & Co. (GS) ready to morph into a bank?”  (Dealscape)

London remains the FX trading hub of choice.  (WSJ.com)

“There is evidence that funds of funds do not add much value.”  (FT/Yahoo!)

Some one is making money with technical analysis.  (Market Movers)

Sometimes, piggyback investing doesn’t work.  T. Boone Pickens takes a bath on Yahoo! (YHOO).  (MarketBeat, DealBook)

“The problem for investors is that in a world filled with conflicts of interest and myopia how to tell which views on those tradeoffs to which one should pay attention?”  (Risk and Return)

Stock-bond relative valuations.  (Bespoke Investment Group)

“Is there a better alternative to capitalization-weighted indices?”  (Capital Spectator)

“Some of the biggest obstacles to getting more oil out of the ground are not geological but political.”  (WashingtonPost.com)

On the crude oil-natural gas price relationship.  (CXO Advisory Group)

The Fed should not “act rashly” to increase rates to fight inflation.  (Economist’s View)

How to build “a market-pricing regulatory scheme.”  (DealBreaker.com)

Breaking news.  House prices dropped in May.  (Calculated Risk, IndexUniverse.com)

Why PR matters.  Apple (AAPL) gets it from the market for PR blunders.  (Real Dan Lyons)

Good to great to not-so-hot.  (Freakonomics)

Flip your website.  (NYTimes.com)

50 states.  50 bands. (Very Short List)

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