“The market is just trending. When it’s trending you can’t think.”  (Howard Lindzon)

“(A)nalysts are more bullish heading into the current earnings season than they have been at the start of any other earnings season since the recession began.”  (Bespoke)

September was another good month for hedge fund returns.  (DealBook, WSJ)

The collapse of Lehman led to a collapse in the relative performance of equity market neutral strategies.  (FT Alphaville)

Four charts showing that the risk trade is still in control.  (Investing With Options earlier Abnormal Returns)

“You don’t see smart, profitable institutions switching from following commodity trends to selling volatility to trading fixed income every time one of those asset classes has a nice run.”  (Condor Options)

We are entering the third period after which bonds have outperformed stocks for a twenty year period.  (Systematic Relative Strength)

“A good trading day for me is one in which I make no trades.”  (VIX and More)

BRIC exposure without any actual BRICs.  (The Pragmatic Capitalist)

“REITS, gold and bond ETFs are starting to look bubblicious. If the financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that bubbles often defy logic.”  (Deal Journal)

With gold on a tear of late, scrutiny returns to gold ETFs.  (FT Alphaville, Felix Salmon, Economist)

Buffett’s favorite valuation indicator is not signaling an undervalued stock market.  (Value Plays earlier Abnormal Returns)

Defining a better measure for value than book value.  (CXO Advisory Group)

“Acting offensively while preparing defensively is a difficult feat to master and requires deliberate practice.”  (Anne Marie’s Trading Blog)

“BlackRock (BLK) has really played this crisis like a fiddle.”  (Clusterstock also Agnes Crane)

Tim Geithner likes to talk to a handful of (big) bank CEOs.  (Baseline Scenario, Clusterstock)

“So what happens when bubbles pop? Once losses exceed expectations, the market is forced to reallocate its capital to cover those losses or face insolvency.”  (Atlantic Business)

The term spread at the end of a tightening monetary cycle matters for future economic activity.  (SSRN)

Credit availability doesn’t matter if consumers and banks aren’t willing to borrow.  (Atlantic Business)

“Current legislative proposals fail to treat derivatives like all of other financial instruments. This is the very least any legislation should include.”  (Big Picture)

Parsing the data to find an upturn in real estate.  (Aleph Blog)

Michael Mauboussin on groupthink, eight common mistakes investors make and Bill Miller.  (Tech Ticker, ibid, ibid)

Financial education doesn’t work.  (The Psy-Fi Blog)

Handicapping the 2009 “The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.”  (Real Time Economics also Mankiw Blog)

“I wonder if part of the reason the calorie information led to the consumption of more calories (and not less) is that people subconsciously chose items that would give them more pleasure.”  (Frontal Cortex)

More on the forgotten man of Moneyball.  (Deadspin)

Abnormal Returns is a proud member of the StockTwits Network.