Here’s wishing all of our loyal readers a happy and healthy New Year.  We will be back this weekend with another edition of our long form links.

Quote of the day

Jeff Miller, “Should investors pay attention to the turn of the calendar?”  (A Dash of Insight)

Chart of the day

A good illustration of market sentiment over the past few years.  (Trader’s Narrative)

Markets

All hail small caps.  (WSJ)

The past year in the markets in one graph.  (Afraid to Trade)

The market was overbought for the entire month of December.  (Bespoke)

Investors are still bullish going into the new year.  (Pragmatic Capitalism, WSJ, Money & Co.)

High sentiment readings do not necessarily imply an imminent market downturn.  (Trading the Odds)

A year-end review of the VIX.  (InvestorPlace)

Copper is at a new high.  The case for a correction.  (Money Game, The Source)

Strategy and Tactics

Derek Hernquist, “Without a marketwide appetite for risk, company signals go mostly unexploited.”  (Derek Hernquist)

How much stock should we put into the Presidential election stock cycle?  (Global Macro Monitor)

Is it possible to find a formula to beat the market?  (Insider Monkey)

Antoine van Agtmael, “People follow the MSCI Index and in that world, emerging markets are 13 percent of the total investable universe. I think that’s just plain wrong.”  (Institutional Investor)

Companies

The Apple (AAPL) bulls are coming out of the woodwork.  (Reuters Breakingviews)

More on the iOS vs. Android battle.  (Apple 2.0, Asymco)

The worst footnote of 2010 goes to…  (footnoted)

Fund management

Dynamic Funds made quite a splash on its entry into the US mutual fund market.  (WSJ)

49 ETFs closed in 2010.  (Invest With An Edge)

Pimco ain’t perfect.  (Bloomberg)

Finance

Now the Feds are planning to exit the GMAC bailout.  (Fortune Finance)

Depressing, yet predictable, news from Fannie and Freddie.  (Fortune Finance)

Floyd Norris, “We have learned that it is risky to have banks that are too big to fail. We need to understand that is it also risky not to have banks that are big enough to pick up the pieces when the too-big banks do fail.”  (NYTimes)

Barry Ritholtz, “Politicians do the bidding not for the people, but for the corporate establishment.”  (Big Picture)

Economy

2010 was a year of economic recovery.  (Atlantic Business)

Putting odds on the demise of the Euro.  (Reuters)

Do academic economists need an ethics code?  (NYTimes)

How do you set policy in light of uncertainty about peak oil?  (Scientific American)

Just because

In 2010 I learned that…. (The Reformed Broker also Financial Armageddon, Kid Dynamite, VIX and More)

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