Quote of the day

Aswath Damodaran, “A stock buyback is not a magic bullet.”  (Musings on Markets)

Chart of the day

Americans are shifting from cash to stocks.  (Minyanville)

Markets

Materials are lagging the market year-to-date.  (StockCharts Blog also the research puzzle)

Rydex traders are chasing energy stocks.  (Trader’s Narrative)

More on the WTI/Brent spread.  (Alea)

Gold diverges from the stock market.  (SurlyTrader also MarketBeat)

Are commodities signaling difficult times ahead for the stock market?  (Barron’s)

Strategy

Inflation is NOT good for equities.  (Money Game)

All traders, eventually, crave simplicity.  (The Minimalist Trader)

More reactions to “Pavlov’s Bulls” by Jeremy Grantham.  (Trader’s Narrative, Fund My Mutual Fund, Global Macro Monitor)

An interview with Phil Goldstein of Bulldog Investors on activist investing.  (market folly)

Research

Simple price indices do not capture the actual returns investors receive.  (Falkenblog)

What is the new currency carry trade?  (voxEU, FT Alphaville)

Predictable patterns around CEO interviews on CNBC.  (SSRN)

Companies

Apple (AAPL) stock and earnings.  (Crossing Wall Street also MarketShot)

Demand Media (DMD) has the same valuation a greater valuation than the New York Times (NYT).  (SAI, WSJ)

Wal-Mart (WMT) vs. Costco (COST).  (Dragonfly Capital)

Finance

Where did all the stock listings go?  (Felix Salmon)

Who isn’t to blame for the financial crisis?  (Big Picture, ibid)

This deal makes The Carlyle Group an even bigger and more global player.  IPO anyone?  (WSJ)

The restructuring/downsizing going on in the venture capital industry. (Venture Capital Dispatch)

ETFs

What can iShares do to save the ‘EEM franchise‘?  (IndexUniverse)

The first ever emerging market style ETFs:  Global X Emerging Markets Value ETF (EMVX) and Global X Emerging Markets Growth ETF (EMGX).  (Morningstar)

Another swap-based ETF targeting the China A-shares market.  (IndexUniverse)

Global

Greece’s sacred cows are getting gored.  (The Source)

All signs point toward a more united Europe as a solution to the Euro crisis.  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

Economy

Kelly Evans, “The Federal Reserve is at the end of its rope.”  (WSJ)

Are rising equity prices a sign that QE2 is actually working?  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

Is the US economy dependent on bubbles to grow?  (Tim Duy’s Fed Watch)

Is America growing more slowly these days?  (Free exchange)

A closer look at the Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti Business Conditions Index.  (Econbrowser)

New home sales are bouncing along the bottom.  (Calculated Risk, ibid)

Also on Abnormal Returns

Bond ETFs are not bonds.  (Abnormal Returns)

The muni bond market bounces as their defenders come out in force.  (AR Screencast)

Our early morning look-in.  (Abnormal Returns)

Errata

A (funny) field guide to market participants.  (Portfolio Probe)

Dubai’s artificial islands are sinking back into the sea.  (BoingBoing)

Jonah Lehrer, “(T)he era of the lone genius is coming to an end.”  (The Frontal Cortex)

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