Quote of the day

Farhad Manjoo, “The easier it is for your customers to leave, the more you’ve got to do to keep them around.”  (Slate)

Markets

More on the Jeremy Grantham interview.  (Credit Writedowns, Expected Returns, CNBC)

Checking in on the weekly options launch.  (Daily Options Report)

Muni bonds, including California, are selling off big time.  (Bespoke, Big Picture, Money & Co.)

The potential effects of a sunset of the Build America Bond program.  (Bond Buyer)

How rigorous is the Fed going to be when it comes to bank dividends?  (FT Alphaville)

Companies

Morgan Stanley (MS) is getting out of the quant business.  (Dealbook)

What can the art market, and it’s proxy Sotheby’s (BID), tell us about the broader global economy?  (AR Screencast)

The GM IPO is hot.  Some retail investors are going to get shut out of the GM IPO.  (Bloomberg, Dealbook)

Starbucks (SBUX) is back on a store opening kick.  (Bloomberg)

Commodities

Do investors affect the prices of commodities?  (Economist also Pragmatic Capitalism)

Commodity futures volume is soaring.  (Points and Figures)

Signs of froth in the gold sector.  (The Reformed Broker)

Natural gas vs. oil.  (Dynamic Hedge)

Copper miners vs. copper.  (beyondbrics also IndexUniverse)

Strategy and Tactics

Why would you buy a fund from some one who doesn’t eat his own cooking?  (The Reformed Broker)

Why the equity curve is important in analyzing studies.  (Quantifiable Edges)

Our talk with Leigh Drogen about the ‘death of the hedge fund structure.’  (Abnormal Returns also Leigh Drogen)

How to get hired as a trader.  (SMB Training)

Technology

Facebook enters the e-mail business.  (TechCrunch, SAI, AllThingsD, GigaOM)

Macbook Air vs. iPad.  (Apple 2.0)

The web startup boom seems a bit “frenzied.”  (A VC, Information Arbitrage)

Economy

Non-surprising news of the day:  not much comes out of the G-20 meeting.  (NYTimes)

The ECRI WLI is bouncing back.  (ECRI)

David Einhorn with some “scathing criticism” of QE2.  (Dealbook)

The Fed isn’t eager to upsize QE2.  (Tim Duy)

The China Paradox:  GDP vs. GDP per capita.  (Money Game)

Why aren’t Americans relocating in jobs like they used to?  (Free exchange)

Deficit commissions come and go, but the willpower to enact meaningful reform is lacking.  (Economix)

Just because

The top 50 inventions of 2010.  (Time)

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