Quote of the day

Charles Kirk, “Constant focus and dedication to trading at a very high-level can only be maintained so long as you do take much-needed breaks along the way to avoid burnout, overtrading, and achieve some much-needed balance.”  (Kirk Report)

Chart of the day

Is the “dumb money” now in the stock market?  (WSJ)

Markets

Sentiment is no longer supportive of the market.  (Money Game, The Technical Take)

Tech stocks are leading the market.  (WSJ, Bespoke)

Companies continue to raise earnings expectations.  (Bloomberg, Big Picture)

The S&P 500 is now outperforming the “bond bubble” year-to-date.  (Bespoke)

What a simple valuation model implies for the S&P 500.  (Crossing Wall Street)

Official bear (or bull) markets “mean nothing at all and can only serve to distort clear thinking about what is happening.”  (the research puzzle)

You want 52-week highs?  Here you go.  (Fund My Mutual Fund)

Don’t get too worked up about the possibility of an AOL (AOL)–Yahoo! (YHOO) hook-up.  (AllThingsD, WSJ contra SAI)

Worried by the run-up in emerging market stocks?  Look to Russia.  (beyondbrics)

Strategy and Tactics

Steven Place, ‘One way a trader can lose money is ignoring the best setups– essentially procrastinating.”  (Investing With Options)

On the value of taking the time to get things to another level.  (Bigger Capital)

What is ‘Andrews Pitchfork‘ and why does it matter now?  (VIX and More)

How to be an investor, not a collector.  (Bucks Blog)

More on how to avoid stockblockers.  (My Trading Network)

Can this fund make money off of index rebalancings?  (FT Alphaville)

Antonio Damaso, “Conscious deliberation is in constant dialogue, often a conflicting dialogue, with non-conscious processing.”  (The Frontal Cortex)

Wall Street

The big banks’ solution to ‘too big to fail’ is to become ‘too global to fail.’  (TNR, Clusterstock)

Will ETFs ultimately be free?  (InvestmentNews)

In light of the Flash Crash should exchanges be worried about cyberterrorists?  (Institutional Investor)

Why do we call them hedge funds if they don’t hedge?  (The Reformed Broker)

Economy

Is the Fed engaging in a currency war?  (Felix Salmon)

Don’t mention gold if you want people to take you seriously.  (Free exchange, MarketBeat, Marginal Revolution)

Small businesses seem be hiring again.  (Calculated Risk, Money Game)

Agflation is showing up in US farmland prices.  (Globe and Mail also TRB)

We are beginning to see a growing number of optimistic pieces about the economy.  (AR Screencast)

Europe

Ireland CDS prices now exceed Argentina.  (FT Alphaville also WSJ)

Neil Shah, “It’s not good news that the ECB’s emergency program is whirring again.”  (MarketBeat)

Ireland is just about bust.  How will it take to clean things up?  (naked capitalism, FT Alphaville, Bloomberg, Free exchange)

Signs of weakness in the German (and European) economy.  (Bloomberg)

Just Because

Expectations are high for the return of Conan.  Just in time for this new American Express (AXP) ad.  (NYTimes, WSJ, YouTube)

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