Quote of the day

Joe Weisenthal, “Don’t let your economic or political worldview cloud your analysis.”  (Money Game also NYTimes)

Chart of the day

The VIX is sitting at a three-year low.  (Bloomberg)

Markets

What it takes to build a market top.  (Mark Hulbert)

The market is losing its leaders one by one.  (The Reformed Broker)

On the growing gap between small caps and large caps.  (ROI)

The market seems to pivot around options expirations.  (Dynamic Hedge)

Check out what REITs typically do in April.  (chessNwine)

Goldman is still itchy about commodities.  (FT Alphaville, The Source)

Companies

It’s good to be a Dow Chemical (DOW) shareholder these days. (ValuePlays)

Pressures are rising on CVS Caremark (CVS) to break itself up.  (NYTimes)

What good are employment contracts if companies don’t enforce them?  (footnoted)

Finance

Do we really want the SEC grading the ratings agencies?  (NetNet)

At least Bank of America (BAC) made some shareholders happy today.  (Street Sweep)

Australia as a model for regulating financial advisers.  (InvestmentNews)

Funds

Some smallish ETFs worth a second look.  (Morningstar)

Why do we continue to call disparate structures ETFs?  (IndexUniverse)

Mortgage REITs as the perfect business model.  (SurlyTrader)

Investor are seeking out hedge funds with short (or no) lockups.  (Bloomberg)

Economy

Some long term perspective on inflation. (Carpe Diem, Capital Spectator, Economix, MarketBeat, Calculated Risk)

Industrial production is higher but still “7.0% below the pre-recession levels at the end of 2007.”  (Calculated Risk, Calafia Beach Pundit)

Rail traffic remains robust.  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

A look at the long term decline in consumer confidence.  (the research puzzle)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

Can the seemingly cheap Newmont Mining (NEM) catch back up to the gold pack? (AR Screencast)

Our tech-centric Friday morning linkfest.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

Why you sometimes need to re-read the investment classics.  (The Minimalist Trader)

Where Apple (AAPL) is behind the curve.  (Daring Fireball)

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