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“We are in a grand [financial and economic] experiment with no real history to draw on, and anyone who pretends otherwise is deluded or selling something, or both.”  (Infectious Greed)

Another sign that hedge funds will come under fee pressure.  (WSJ.com)

“By design, hedge funds most benefit managers, rather than investors.”  (Time.com)

What Whitney Tilson is buying.  (Barrons.com)

How the changing duration of equities can affect your asset allocation.  (Hussman Funds)

A look at bond funds and alternative asset funds.  (WSJ.com, ibid)

ETF Deathwatch.  (Invest With An Edge via greenfaucet.com)

Compounding and the effect on leveraged ETF returns.  (WSJ.com)

How rebalanced commodity indices will affect individual commodities.  (FT Alphaville)

The gold-silver ratio is out of whack.  (Crossing Wall Street)

What crack spreads are telling us about the crude oil market.  (FT Alphaville)

A closer look at trading the oil/oil stock ratio.  (MarketSci Blog)

The year in (higher) global volatility.  (VIX and More also Daily Options Report)

Will we see the “return of arbitrage” in 2009?  (Infectious Greed)

Japanese companies were on a share buyback spree in 2008.  (FT.com)

Structural changes have made it more difficult for small technology companies to come public.  (FT.com)

“Fraud is a boom-time crime because it feeds on the faith of investors, and during bubbles that faith is overflowing.”  (NewYorker.com)

“Economics as a discipline does not seem to be particularly introspective.”  (Big Picture)

Tax cuts are playing a big role in the proposed economic stimulus plan.  (Clusterstock, naked capitalism, Economist’s View, Free exchange)

What to make of MacWorld-Steve Jobs kerfuffle.  (Dealbreaker, Clusterstock, GigaOm)

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