The now famous “four bears” chart sure looks different today.  (dshort)

The “money on the sidelines” argument is a canard.  (MarketBeat also FT Alphaville)

Sometimes the stock market doesn’t care what is happening in the real economy.  (Big Picture)

Was last year’s market crisis a “once in a lifetime” sort of event?  (SSRN)

After a decade of poor stock market returns, is buy-and-hold ready for a comeback?  (Abnormal Returns)

Despite problems with pricing bond ETFs are seeing an inflow of assets, (WSJ also Felix Salmon)

And you thought we were critical of the ETF industry.  (FT Alphaville)

An interesting look at exchange share turnover velocity.  (Alea Blog)

“Amateur, at-home investors have always traded badly, and nothing about the HFT makes this new.”  (Clusterstock earlier Abnormal Returns)

The Trader Stage Development Model 2.0.  (VIX and More)

“Australia on Tuesday became the first G20 nation to raise interest rates since the peak of the financial crisis, as its central bank increased the official cash rate from 3 per cent to 3.25 per cent.”  (FT Alphaville, Economist, EconomPic Data, Capital Spectator)

Paolo Pellegrini out on his own.  (market folly also Dealbreaker)

Is CBS (CBS) really going bankrupt?  (Silicon Alley Insider)

New York City taxi medallions have been a great investment this decade.  A way to play this is Medallion Financial (TAXI).  (Crain’s New York via peHUB)

Are oil producers looking to price oil with a basket of currencies.  (The Independent also Credit Writedowns, The Money Game, Mish)

Is the stage set for a M&A boom?  (Bloomberg)

“Asset reflation therefore, in equities and especially in gold, should be seen not as exuberance but merely as part of the same chaos in pricing unleashed by The Federal Reserve, starting earlier this decade.”  (Gregor Macdonald)

The three conditions necessary for a bubble to form.  (Economist’s View)

“(P)ublic shareholders of investment banks, as a group, did not act to brake the risk taking of their employees at all, but rather encouraged and rewarded it, or—what is perhaps more pertinent—punished any executive who did not embrace such activity wholeheartedly.”  (Epicurean Dealmaker)

“The merchandise that matters most—to Washington and Wall Street, to Shanghai and Beijing—isn’t the stuff that crosses the Pacific in container ships. It’s the material that courses through the world’s financial system via fiber-optic cable.”  (Slate)

Was the Obama administration right to not nationalize the banks?  (Ezra Klein)

Goldman Sachs (GS) has an image problem.  (Felix Salmon)

“As it happens, there are already signs the economy is sending more workers into retirement than expected: Last week the Social Security Administration announced that applications for the last fiscal year were 47% higher than projected.”  (The Stash)

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