Quote of the day

Howard Lindzon, “You may NEVER catch or ride a company like Amazon, but you should NEVER catch a death spiral like Border’s.”  (Howard Lindzon)

Chart of the day

Behold the (parabolic) move in cotton.  (StockCharts also TRB)

Markets

Jeff Miller, “Understanding inflation is now the single biggest challenge for investors.  There is a lot at stake.”  (A Dash of Insight also Economix)

Stock correlations continue to ease.  (MarketBeat)

On the intensity of the current bull market.  (Aleph Blog)

How long can oil and transportation stocks move in the same direction?  (the research puzzle)

Strategy

Losing sucks but what really sucks is losing more than I should by not following my rules.”  (Attitrade)

On the benefits of keeping it simple when looking at charts.  (Crosshairs Trader)

When stop-loss rules make sense.  (Falkenblog)

Ease into any new options trading strategies.  (SMB Training)

Companies

Best Buy (BBY) is not a real estate play.  (Jeff Matthews)

Mark Cuban is skeptical of the surge in Internet company valuations.  (peHUB)

The Borders bankruptcy just highlights the problems plaguing the publishing industry.  (NYTimes)

Don’t expect any actual news to come out of a CEO interview on CNBC.  (MarketBeat, Dealbreaker)

Finance

The ETF ticker spat gets resolved amicably.  (IndexUniverse)

Corporations are pushing for a tax holiday on repatriated earnings.  (Fortune)

Can an understanding of biology help explain the financial crisis?  (BBC)

Economy

Core CPI creeps higher.  (Crossing Wall Street, Calculated Risk, Capital Spectator, FT Alphaville)

A big advance from the Philly Fed manufacturing report.  However keep an eye on prices. (Real Time Economics, Calculated Risk, Money Game)

Econbloggers still believe the state of the US economy is “mixed.”  (Kauffman Foundation)

Andy Kessler, “(T)here is no quick fix for job creation when so much technology-driven job destruction is taking place.”  (WSJ)

Why waiting to fix the budget will only make things worse.  (Megan McArdle)

The great stagnation in medical innovation.  (Marginal Revolution, DailyFinance)

The economics and politics of putting a value on a human life.  (NYTimes, Felix Salmon, Marginal Revolution)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

The spike in cotton prices is going to have a number of knock-on effects worth watching.  (AR Screencast)

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

Advice

Where to turn when search results are ‘broken’?  (Credit Writedowns also TechCrunch)

What to do when you are feeling stress.  (Altucher Confidential)

Eight tips for dealing with criticism.  (Happiness Project)

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