Joel Kotkin, “If the U.S. were a stock, it would be trading at historic lows.”  Don’t give up on the U.S. just yet.  (New Geography via The Browser)

“Both sports betting markets and financial markets are efficient ENOUGH that you have to do your own work – and LOTS of it – if you expect to generate alpha.”  (Kid Dynamite)

A long-term look at Dow yields vs. Treasury yields.  (Bespoke)

Money continues to pour into junk bond funds.  (The Money Game)

Relative Strength 101.  (CSS Analytics)

On the need for traders to adapt to high-frequency trading.  (TraderFeed)

Big names are lining up to invest in the Rusal IPO.  (WSJ, Times Online)

How John Paulson could become the richest man in the world.  (The Money Game)

Adam Warner, “Is there a volatility play in GLD itself?”  (Options Zone)

Is the tanker glut telling us oil could fall next year?  (Big Picture)

A new hedge fund is focused on US farmland.  (FINalternatives earlier Abnormal Returns)

As ETFs proliferate it becomes more important to understand what you are buying.  (Fundmastery Blog)

RIP, MacroShares housing ETFs.  (ETF Database, 24/7 Wall St.)

Home prices seem to be flattening out.  (Calculated Risk)

Why are Fannie and Freddie rallying?  (Money & Co.)

What happens to mortgage rates when the Fed stops buying mortgage-backed securities.  (Atlantic Business)

Noted pessimist James Grant is still surprisingly upbeat about the economy’s prospects in 2010.  (NYMag)

On the relationship between dynamism and safety.  (Curious Capitalist, Felix Salmon)

On the damage of inflation and the power of compounding.  (Freakonomics)

Inside the mind of Sam Zell.  (Simoleon Sense)

Estimates of the stock losses from the Tiger Woods scandal are overestimated.  (Felix Salmon)

Fred Wilson, “Someday machines may be smart enough that they don’t need humans to give them cues, but today I believe the state of the art in machine intelligence right now is ‘humans first, machines second’ as Google did it.”  (A VC)

The top 100 tickers on StockTwits in 2009.  (Howard Lindzon)

The five best investment reads of the year.  (World Beta)

In praise of the Happiness Project.  (Marginal Revolution)

Location-based apps are going to huge.  Can Foursquare thrive?  (The Big Money)

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