Quote of the day

Doug Kass, “Low expectations and an underinvested investment community are all conditions that have historically formed the foundation for a better market setting…”  (TheStreet)

Chart of the day

The Euro is breaking down.  (chessNwine also MarketBeat, FT Alphaville)

Markets

What happens when the market AND the $VIX decline on the same day.  (SentimenTrader, Dynamic Hedge)

The Chinese stock market can’t get out of its own way.  (MarketBeat)

Why gold should keep appreciating.  (Aleph Blog)

Strategy

Why we keep making the mistake of taking on too much risk.  (Above the Market)

Do buy-side recommendations, via SumZero, add value?  (SSRN)

Currency managers don’t add much alpha.  (All About Alpha)

Technology

Apple ($AAPL) can’t find any love these days.  (Forbes, Apple 2.0)

Amazon ($AMZN) has been coming down post-Kindle Fire.  (Bespoke)

Analysts are now talking break up values for Research in Motion ($RIMM).  (MarketBeat)

Global smartphone penetration has a long ways to go to 100%.  (Asymco)

Apple is still trying to make iAds work.  (SplatF)

Finance

Talk about old school.  A hostile takeover bid for Vulcan Materials ($VMC).  (Dealbook, WSJ)

How lower corporate tax rates could hurt the big banks.  (Economist)

MF Global

The CME ($CME) still has some explaining to do re:  MF Global.  (naked capitalism)

Farmers want tighter restrictions on futures firms.  (WSJ)

MF Global for Dummies.  (Peter L. Brandt)

China

Hugh Hendry has done just fine shorting China this year.  (FT)

Yum! Brands ($YUM) is becoming increasingly dependent on China.  (FT)

Economy

Retail sales were better than the headline number.  (Bespoke also EconomPic Data, Capital Spectator, Real Time Economics)

Small business optimism, including hiring plans, ticks up.  (Calculated Risk, MarketBeat, Bespoke)

Turnover at trucking firms is picking up.  Signs of a strengthening economy.  (Money & Co.)

Is the farm boom about to go bust?  (The Atlantic)

Can the unemployment rate get down to 8.0% by November 2012?  (Calculated Risk)

Social finance

Checking in on StockTwits, the “Facebook for finance.”  (SmartMoney)

Estimize is trying to disintermediate sell-side analyst earnings estimates.  (The Reformed Broker)

Parsing tweets to glean data for trading is becoming mainstream.  (MarketBeat)

Ten trends in online investing.  (Tradestreaming)

How times have changed.  Investment clubs are a dying breed.  (Reuters)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

Winston Churchill on stop loss orders .  (Abnormal Returns)

What you missed in our Tuesday morning linkfest.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

Two forecasters admit their fallibility.  (Cafe Hayek)

Richard Thaler on why the BCS should die.  (Chronicle of Higher Education)

What is the Higgs boson and why does it matter?  (New Scientist)

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