Quote of the day

Baruch, “If you think over-powerful investors trading with inside information is bad for the little guy, wait until you see what happens if company managements get a total monopoly over market-moving information.”  (Ultimi Barbarorum)

Chart of the day

How much can emerging market central bankers do about inflation?  (beyondbrics)

Markets

The US equity market is not quite overbought…yet.  (Big Picture)

Stock market valuations are getting stretched.  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

Consumer discretionary stocks have “overtaken” consumer staples.  (Bespoke)

Strategy

Why the rush into alternative investments when results are so disappointing?  (Falkenblog)

More on fixed income portfolio management:  bond swapping.  (BondSquawk)

Companies

Netflix (NFLX) is still overvalued.  (Crossing Wall Street, MarketBeat)

The plot thickens at St. Joe Company (JOE).  (ValuePlays, Inelegant Investor, 24/7 Wall St.)

Technology

Is Apple (AAPL) getting ready to move into the cloud?  (WSJ also The Orange View, Apple 2.0)

The long road Pandora traveled on the way to an IPO.  (Bloomberg)

Tablets vs. netbooks:  no longer a fair fight.  (NYTimes )

Almost nobody is happy about the Nokia (NOK) deal with Microsoft (MSFT).  (WSJ, ibid)

Finance

Why the stock market isn’t doing a very good job at capital allocation these days.  (Felix Salmon)

RIP, once in for all, the Build America Bonds program.  (WSJ)

How Stevie Cohen changed one man’s life.  (Altucher Confidential)

Funds

An interesting result of allowing cash creations:  the Van Eck Market Vectors Egypt ETF (EGPT).  (Kid Dynamite)

Do the users of ‘ultrashort indices‘ know what they are doing?  (Big Picture)

Och-Ziff Capital Management Group (OZM) is convincing investors to lock-up their capital in exchange for lower fees.  (Institutional Investor)

Morningstar (MORN) is going to start rating model ETF portfolios.  (InvestmentNews)

Coming to a trading screen near you, a Chinese bond ETF.  (ETFdb)

Global

How Apple is singlehandedly helping to save the Japanese economy.  (Money Game)

Japan’s lost decade.  (EconomPic Data also FT Alphaville)

Network capitalism” and the latest Chinese stock fraud.  (Bronte Capital, FT Alphaville)

The history behind the rise of the ‘Tiger Mother.’  (Rick Bookstaber)

Economy

Inflation expectations, debt maturities and the effect of QE2.  (Econbrowser)

The housing crash is hitting markets once thought relatively immune.  (NYTimes also Pragmatic Capitalism

Dr. Copper is feeling a bit giddy.  (Calafia Beach Pundit)

“The problem is that the United States doesn’t know, just yet, what to do with its natural gas.”  (Gregor Macdonald)

The Federal budget breakdown over time.  (EconomPic Data)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

Rising commodity prices, especially food, are putting at risk record corporate profit margins.  (AR Screencast)

Our Monday morning live link look-in.  (Abnormal Returns)

Worth a listen

Russ Roberts talks with Tyler Cowen about the ‘Great Stagnation.’  (EconTalk)

Michael Lewis compares and contrasts Greece, Iceland, Ireland and California.  (Planet Money)

A podcast on the “Lollapalooza of ETFs.”  (IndexUniverse)

Mixed media

Five questions to ask before you “donate” your content to an aggregator.  (Big Picture)

On the blogosphere:  the parallels between earthquakes and “wordquakes.”  (technology review via @zerobeta)

The rise of the e-reader is having a profound effect on the way we read (and write).  (NYTimes)

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