Quote of the day

Carl Swenlin, “Rather than explaining why the market is wrong, we should be asking, “What is the market doing?”, and acting appropriately.”  (StockCharts Blog)

Chart of the day

It is time for the “global gorillas” to shine.  (WSJ)

Markets

Equity market sentiment at week-end.  (Trader’s Narrative)

Some small investors may never come back into the stock market.  (WSJ)

Is this week’s small cap underperformance something to worry about?  (Global Macro Monitor)

Staples and utilities are showing the best sector action of late.  (Dragonfly Capital also Afraid to Trade)

A round-up of Round 2 of the Barron’s Roundtable.  (Stone Street Advisors)

Benford’s Law and the stock market.  (Crossing Wall Street)

Companies

There is no “Buffett premium” left in Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) shares.  (Barron’s also GuruFocus, Abnormal Returns)

Google (GOOG) is planning to clean up its search results much to the chagrin of Demand Media.  (SAI, Herb Greenberg, GigaOM)

Duff Macdonald, “If you believe a company can’t sustain the loss of a single individual, you shouldn’t invest in it.” (Fortune Finance)

Apple (AAPL), ex-cash, is trading at 10x forward earnings.  (Asymco)

ATP Oil & Gas (ATPG) is a leveraged play on Gulf of Mexico oil.  (Barron’s)

Finance

It is a strange feature of my business [investment banking] that, despite such intense competition, investment banks rarely compete on price.”  (Epicurean Dealmaker also TRB)

The financialization of GE (GE) over time.  (Rortybomb also Money Game)

Companies are still managing their finances as if we are still in a recession.  (CFO)

Why are some hoping for state bankruptcies?  (Money Game, ibid)

Global

Rising inflation was the macro theme of the week.  (Gavyn Davies)

Where does China actually hold their US Treasury securities?  (NYTimes)

Indian stocks are out of favor this year-to-date.  (WSJ)

More small cap foreign ETFs coming to market.  (IndexUniverse)

Economy

The yield curve so steep in part because of a fear of a ratings downgrade.  (WSJ)

The NYC taxi medallion conundrum.  (Felix Salmon)

Errata

Another must read in the series on financial blogging:  why style matters.  (The Reformed Broker)

CEO transitions are tricky, never fun, but sometimes necessary.  (A VC)

What ‘Modern Family‘ says about modern families.  (NYTimes)

Thanks for checking in with Abnormal Returns. For all the latest you can follow us on StockTwits and Twitter.