The stock market has been “on offense” since the July lows.  (Afraid to Trade)

Beware naive contrarianism.  (Big Picture)

Investors still want what hedge funds offer.  (Absolute Return+Alpha)

Recent hedge fund performance is actually bad news.  (The Money Game)

The first-mover advantage in ETFs is dissipating as investors become more discriminating.  (IndexUniverse)

Your bond fund manager is likely gaming his benchmark.  (Morningstar)

A skeptic takes a look at the moving average timing system for asset classes.  (Falkenblog)

Don’t count on market relationships to remain stable over time.  (CXO Advisory Group)

Historical volatility demystified.  (Know Your Options via Daily Options Report)

There is no shortage of mortgage REITs in the IPO pipeline trying to prey on distressed situations.  (BusinessWeek)

Research indicates that traders become less overconfident over time.  (SSRN)

“It is with trading as with sports or the arts: many people participate, but few are able to craft an ongoing livelihood from their talents. Trading for a living takes much more than people realize.”  (TraderFeed)

More on the similarities between poker and investing.  (Wall St. Cheat Sheet)

“Computers don’t manipulate markets,  people do.”  (WSJ)

A fundamental misreading of a Treasury auction.  (Across the Curve, Clusterstock)

A couple of infrastructure funds haven’t performed as expected.  (TheStreet)

What big stories is the MSM missing?  (Aleph Blog)

If shareholders are ignorant, why would we want to give them more power?  (Clusterstock)

Paul Volcker thinks banks should not be able to own hedge funds.  (peHUB)

Good riddance, Lehman Brothers.  (The Reformed Broker)

“Compensation is a necessary method of managerial control, but it is not a sufficient one. I continue to maintain that it was not even the determining one during the recent financial crisis.”  (The Epicurean Dealmaker)

Is banking getting back to basics?  (Economist also Christopher Swann)

The FDIC is thinking about getting out of the debt guarantee business.  (Atlantic Business)

“The Fed is fueling a nice little train of trading, if not economic, activity. The Fed will fuel the ride until inflation pressures truly emerge, a ride that can last for a long time given the current state of the labor market.”  (Economist’s View)

Another signal that the economic recession is over.  (Carpe Diem)

Someone is making money off of cheap natural gas, i.e. the gas storage companies.  (WSJ)

“Easy oil means cheap oil.  And difficult oil means expensive oil.”  (Gregor Macdonald)

The BBC’s Lehman Brothers movie will not be winning any BAFTAs.  (FT Alphaville)

An interview with John Maudlin.  (Wall St. Cheat Sheet)

Avoiding confirmation bias and how to make the most of StockTwits.  (Abnormal Returns)

Abnormal Returns is a proud member of the StockTwits Network.