Happy New Year everyone and thanks for checking out another edition in our ongoing experiment in long form curation. As always we welcome your feedback.

Machines now rule the financial markets.  Get used to it.  (Wired)

How the end of proprietary trading could actually help investment bank stock prices.  (Institutional Investor)

Shayne Mcguire, “Gold will never outperform stocks and bonds over the long run, because it does not grow or produce a cash flow. But in light of the challenges facing most other investment classes at present, investors should think carefully about gold.”  (Newsweek)

John West, “The autopilot embedded in today’s target-date funds’ glide paths is far too rudimentary in a world of dynamically shifting risk premiums.”  (IndexUniverse)

Apple (AAPL) vs. Google (GOOG):  the clash of cultures.  (More Intelligent Life)

Can psychology and economics ever be reconciled?  (The Psy-Fi Blog)

Are we simply an algorithmic function of what we buy?  (NYTimes)

The “decline effect” and the limitations of science.  (New Yorker)

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