Quote of the day

Jeff White, “Consider them [losses] a cost of doing business as a trader. Brick-and-mortar stores have overhead, but as a trader, the biggest portion of your overhead is the losses you take.”  (SMB Training)

Chart of the day

The $VIX is plunging.  (MarketBeat)

Markets

The Dow is on its way to its best October ever.  (The Tell, MarketBeat, Bespoke)

November has historically been a good month for the bulls.  (MarketSci Blog, Pragmatic Capitalism)

Today is a tough day to be 100% in cash.  (The Reformed Broker)

Investors want corporate bonds.  (Bespoke)

The $VIX futures term structure is “odd at the moment.”  (Option Pit)

Is now the time to chase?  (ZorTrades)

Forex

FX strategies have been money losers in 2011.  (Bloomberg)

When does the carry trade profit?  (CBS Moneywatch)

Strategy

What stocks do ‘dream team’ managers hold?  (Aleph Blog)

Analyst earnings estimates are overrated.  (YCharts Blog)

Are you buying individual bonds without knowing the markup?  (Total Return)

Rob, “It always amazes me how some investors will blindly buy shares in a company without even looking over the financial statements.”  (TechInsidr)

Shorting

Shorting stocks is like hunting a wildebeest.  (Covestor)

Early is the same thing as wrong when it comes to shorting stocks.  (Bronte Capital)

Companies

Amazon ($AMZN) is still overpriced.  (Crossing Wall Street)

ExxonMobil ($XOM) still makes a lot of money.  (Bloomberg, MarketBeat)

The Windows Phone 7.5 is surprisingly good.  (NYTimes)

There is an exodus from Yahoo! ($YHOO) as it looks for a strategic direction.  (Dealbook)

What is the Groupon IPO really worth?  (SAI)

Apple

60% of Apple ($AAPL) sales are now outside the US.  (footnoted)

The Apple TV is a mtter of when, not if.  (Bits)

Why Does Apple’s board get so much flack?  (Eric Jackson)

Finance

Who might want all or parts of MF Global ($MF)?  (Deal Journal also Term Sheet, Dealbook, WSJ)

Hedge funds are likely to be chasing through year-end.  (Term Sheet)

John Paulson is not seeing a bounce back in October.  (WSJ)

The challenge of knowing where insider trading starts.  (Curious Capitalist)

ETFs

Is there pent up demand for a CTA ETF?  (World Beta)

A look at some cash equivalent ETFs.  (IndexUniverse)

Global

The cycle of “Euro deals” rolls on.  (Curious Capitalist, Felix Salmon, Megan McArdle)

The Greek CDS situation is absurd.  (Kid Dynamite, MarketBeat, Economist’s View)

Economy

Check out Q3 GDP growth.  (FT Alphaville, Calculated Risk, Capital Spectator, Modeled Behavior, Money Game)

Initial unemployment claims continue to hug the 400,000 line.  (Calculated Risk)

Rail traffic continues to expand.  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

Check out the long term trend in transfer payments.  (EconomPic Data)

More on the high beta 1%. (Dealbreaker)

A look at the income distribution over time.  (Big Picture)

Is there pent-up housing demand?  (Free exchange)

NGDP is getting “serious attention.”  (Real Time Economics also Modeled Behavior)

Harrisburg, PA is a city “at war with itself.”  (Reuters)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

Portfolio manager performance art.  (Abnormal Returns)

What you missed in our Thursday morning Europe-focused linkfest.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

We are still the “cognitively challenged, behaviorally biased, emotionally compromised humans” we have always been.  (The Psy-Fi Blog)

The best social media advice:  “Ignore the haters.”  (Phil Pearlman)

Bloomberg TV goes live on the iPad.  (9to5Mac)

Abnormal Returns is a founding member of the StockTwits Blog Network.