Quote of the day
Erik Swarts, “If you would like to outperform the indices in conditions such as these, check your dogma at the door and open your peripheral vision to your ego in one corner and that wild dog we like to call alpha in the other.” (Market Anthropology)
Chart of the day
Filtering out market volatility. (StockCharts Blog)
Markets
Nice to see the Hang Seng bouncing in here. (Global Macro Monitor)
The Shanhai Composite has got to bounce in here. (All Star Charts)
Why shorting rallies is tough in here. (Quantifiable Edges)
Consumers unable to refinance have been a boon for mortgage bond holders. (Economic Musings)
Some mortgage REITs bounce better than others. (Focus on Funds)
Commodities
The platinum/gold ratio is all messed up. (Bespoke)
Is the farmland boom topping out? (Climateer Investing)
Why corn farmers are actually in the energy business. (Planet Money)
ETFs
ETF statistics for September 2011. (Invest With An Edge, allETF)
More $VXX data! (MarketSci Blog)
Strategy
False recession calls can kill a portfolio. (Crackerjack Finance)
Check out an excerpt from Vince Venziani’s The Greatest Trades of All Time. (The Reformed Broker)
Research
How balanced portfolios perform in expansions and recessions. (Vanguard via @jasonzweigwsj)
Using the VIX to enhance technical signals. (SSRN via CXOAG)
Can Google searches actually predict stock prices? (Freakonomics)
Apple
The death of Steve Jobs highlights the problem with American business. (Free exchange contra Real Time Economics, Curious Capitalist)
Has Apple ($AAPL) jumped the shark? (UpsideTrader)
A look at Apple’s bench strength. (FT)
Apple needs a better board of directors. (WSJ)
Apple product prices as launch in 2011 dollars. (Felix Salmon)
Apple has been working to build a sustainable culture over time. (AppleInsider, WSJ)
Steve Jobs blurred the line between the organic and inorganic. (Time)
The magic of Steve Jobs was turning commodities into “objects of desire.” (NYTimes)
12 lessons from the life of Steve Jobs. (ROI)
Finance
Brokers are embracing social media. (Wall Street & Technology)
Harry Markopolos might be prone to hyperbole. (Clusterstock)
Global
One graph that demonstrates by Europe’s banks are in trouble. (Global Macro Monitor)
It seems like much of the Euromess is already priced into European stocks. (Credit Writedowns)
Canada is showing much better jobs growth than in the US. (Money Game, ibid)
Economy
Non-farm payrolls came in better than expected, but still weak. (Calculated Risk, Money Game, FT Alphaville, Capital Spectator, Planet Money)
Long term unemployment seems intractable at the moment. (Real Time Economics, Felix Salmon)
On the growing gap between sentiment and economic activity. (Real Time Economics)
Rail traffic is not all that strong. (Risk and Return)
Have we really fixed anything in the economy yet? (Umair Haque)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
What you missed in our Friday morning linkfest. (Abnormal Returns)
Mixed media
Newspapers are relying more on paywalls. (Economist)
The six diseases of billionaires. (Altucher Confidential)
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