What a sub-250 bp Baa-Treasury spread means for the stock market.  (Crossing Wall Street)

Watching the reversal in the VIX.  (FT Alphaville, Daily Options Report)

Sometimes big trades have no information value.  (Options for Rookies)

David Varadi, “It therefore stands to reason that the only real inefficiencies in the stock market are driven by the persistency of human beings to behave the same way over time and across economic regimes.”  (CSS Analytics)

Contrarians have an ETF on the way.  (IndexUniverse)

An M&A boom is likely coming.  Better to be early than late.  (Michael Mauboussin via Simoleon Sense)

Why fund manager Bruce Berkowitz talks to the press.  (Ideas Report also Street Capitalist)

There is a big difference between talking your book and front-running.  (Kid Dynamite)

As bonus season ramps up the Obama administration mulls a “TBTF tax” to cover the cost of the TARP.  (WashingtonPost also Big Picture, naked capitalism, Free exchange, Felix Salmon, The Balance Sheet)

Evan Newmark, “But then again, money is not the point of the whole “bank fee” exercise. This is about politics.”  (Mean Street also NYTimes)

Why didn’t the Fed make more money in 2009?  (Aleph Blog)

What fueled the housing bubble?  (Economist’s View also Economics One)

China tightens monetary policy.  Will it prick the Chinese real estate bubble?  (Atlantic Business also The Money Game)

Thomas Friedman takes the other side of the China bubble argument.  (NYTimes also Clusterstock)

Google (GOOG) tires of getting pushed around by China. Will this amount to anything? (WSJ, NYTimes also Economist, Atlantic Business)

The recession was ironically a good time for CEOs.  Turnover was way down in 2009.  (Money & Co.)

On the parallels between Mark McGwire and the FCIC. In short, we are being played.  (DJ Market Talk)

Make sure the goals you set for your trading actually make sense. (Kirk Report)

Paul Kedrosky, “We learn so much more failure than from success.”  (Infectious Greed)

How to write a press release.  (kottke)

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