Quote of the day

David Merkel, “I don’t have simply one estimate of where things are going, I have many estimates, and it is quite possible that things go right.”  (Aleph Blog)

Chart of the day

The most important macro graph of the year.  (Gavyn Davies)

Markets

The Christmas (and New Year’s) rally analyzed.  (Quantifiable Edges, Marketwatch, MarketSci Blog)

Investing fads and themes, by year.  (The Reformed Broker)

Bullish sentiment rules.  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

Where did all the 1% days go?  (Bespoke)

Check out lumber prices.  (Global Macro Monitor)

Somebody in London owns a LOT of copper.  (WSJ, Clusterstock)

The future of dividends in 2011.  (Political Calculations)

Strategy and Tactics

Pay attention to the VIX when it does something unexpected.  (Barron’s)

Hedge funds with formal risk management systems performed better in 2008.  (All About Alpha)

Bess Levin talks with (and plays poker with) David Einhorn.  (Dealbreaker)

On the dangers of confirmation bias and the not-so scientific search for market analogies.  (AR Screencast)

Companies

Costco (COST) as a play on California.  (YCharts Blog)

Merging two underperforming retailers Sears & Kmart created one larger underperforming retailer.  (NYTimes)

Retailers beware, consumers are now acting like cold-eyed traders.   (Simoleon Sense)

Is there an upper limit on Kindle device sales?  (Big Picture)

Apple’s business in one graph.  (Asymco, Apple 2.0)

Ten reasons not to get an iPad for Christmas. (ROI)

Finance

A 2011 IPO pipeline preview.  (FT Alphaville)

Talking about a muni bond crisis ignores the fact that the market is remarkably diverse.  (Bloomberg)

Another broker joins the ETF game. (Barron’s)

Eric Falkenstein, “If risk management were merely following some simple asset-to-liabilities test, someone would have figured that out by now.”  (Falkenblog also Marginal Revolution, EconLog)

Economics

James Hamilton, “..we don’t have independent measures of the velocity of money.”  (Econbrowser)

On the on again-off again relationship between economics and psychology. (The Psy-Fi Blog also Modeled Behavior)

Mark Thoma thinks the bailout should have focused on households not the banks.  (Fiscal Times)

Where the US is investing in knowledge capital.  (Mandel on Innovation)

Global

Geoffrey T. Smith, “Barring miracles, 2011 is going to be the year when the European Central Bank becomes the world’s largest junk bond fund.”  (The Source)

Chinese reverse mergers are going to keep Herb Greenberg in columns for a year.  (CNBC)

Should we fear the ongoing Canadian invasion?  (Daniel Gross)

Will Japan’s stock market be able to disengage from the dire talk about its economy in 2011?  (AR Screencast)

Just because

Very meta.  The best music lists of 2010.  (Speakeasy also Paste Magazine)

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