Quote of the day
Naomi Powell, “Simply put, oil drives Norway’s economy and China drives the price of oil.” (Globe and Mail)
Chart of the day
Corporate bond spreads have come in, but not as much as the VIX. (the research puzzle)
Markets
Is a low VIX necessarily bad for the stock market? (Don Fishback, VIX and More)
The equity options market has “pushed to historically extreme bullish positioning.” (Data Diary)
Now portfolio managers are getting uber-bullish. (Pragmatic Capitalism)
Doug Kass doesn’t see much more upside to the stock market. (TheStreet)
Are investors now overestimating the risk of investment? (Free exchange)
The BRICs are not ending the year on a high note. (Barron’s)
Online forex brokers are coming public. (WSJ)
Interest rates
Why are rates rising. (Calafia Beach Pundit, Bonddad Blog)
Treasury yields are just normalizing. (Infectious Greed)
What if the back up in interest rates isn’t all about stronger economic growth? (The Source)
The bond bull market isn’t over yet. (FT Alphaville)
Muni bond buyers are, for the most part, sitting on their hands. (Bond Buyer)
Commodities
Commodities are NOT an investment. (Pragmatic Capitalism also MarketBeat)
Comparing an active vs. passive approach to commodities investing. (Gavyn Davies)
Debating the potential for a farmland bubble. (big picture agriculture)
Rising interest rates=a higher cost of carry for gold. (Money Game)
Chocofinger relents to the muddle that is cocoa prices. (WSJ)
Strategy and Tactics
Carl Richards, “There’s really no such thing as “buy, sell, or hold.” It’s just buy or sell.” (The Minimalist Trader)
The downside of feeling like a (profit) king. (Bigger Capital)
The payoff for ‘betting against beta.’ (Falkenblog)
Are emerging market bonds still an underinvested asset class? (Institutional Investor)
The Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager is back and talking about Latvia. (n+1)
Economy
Continued glacial improvement in the employment situation. (Credit Writedowns, Bloomberg)
A decent yester-day in economic statistics. (Maximum Utility, Calculated Risk, Bespoke)
The new house pipeline is pretty dry. (EconomPic Data, Atlantic Business)
If you can’t answer these questions, you can’t understand the financial crisis. (Big Picture)
It’s a great time to be rich. (Businessweek also Ezra Klein)
A great illustration using the iPhone on why you shouldn’t trust current trade statistics. (WSJ also Infectious Greed, Planet Money)
Does the economic recovery necessarily need to be technology-led? (Atlantic Business)
Vietnam shrugged off a Moody’s sovereign downgrade. (WSJ, beyondbrics, ETFdb)
Worth noting
Happy fifth blogiversary to Jeff Miller. (A Dash of Insight)
Who needs an IPO when you can raise $200 million the easy way. The case of Twitter. (Boomtown, GigaOM, Leigh Drogen)
Matt Ridley on why we are “obsessively pessimistic for no good reason.” (Five Books)
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