Quote of the day

Eric Falkenstein, “If you want less equity exposure you should lower your beta or volatility by adopting a low volatility tilt. Alternatively, allocate less money to equities. It doesn’t make sense to pay insurance that costs more than anyone’s equity return premium.”  (Falkenblog)

Chart of the day

Why it makes sense to combine low volatility and momentum strategies.  (AllETF)

Markets

Finally some volatility.  (Crossing Wall Street also VIX and More)

What the ultimate stock pickers are buying and selling.  (Morningstar)

Corporate insiders are not hot on this market.  (WSJ)

Something has got to give with the SPDR Utilities ETF ($XLU).  (StockCharts Blog)

Some odd results with the VXEEM futures.  (VIX and More)

Strategy

Carl Richards, “It’s easy to find people willing to tell you where they think things are going.”  (Bucks Blog)

What makes for a robust system?  (Systematic Relative Strength)

Why short term traders also need portfolio stops.  (Phil Pearlman)

Why the correction should be mild.  (Humble Student of the Markets)

There has got to be a way to play the natural gas-oil spread.  (Turnkey Analyst also Breakingviews)

Companies

Verizon Wireless ($VZ) needs spectrum.  (Digits)

What does Carl Icahn see in WebMD ($WBMD)?  (Market Folly)

It looks like Square could breakthrough in the payment space.  (SplatF)

China (and private equity) want a piece of the N. American energy scene.  (WSJ, ibid)

Behind the innovation drought in big pharma.  (The Atlantic)

Finance

The state of the debate over high frequency trading.  (FT)

Conflict or not, Goldman Sachs ($GS) always wins.  (Dealbook, Dealbreaker)

Why the Volcker Rule gets things bass ackwards.  (Economics of Contempt)

Business

Why you need a business model not a business plan.  (Richard Dale)

Starting a business is easy, but starting a company is too hard.  (Farhad Manjoo)

ETFs

Milwaukee is the home of some of the best mutual fund managers around.  (InvestmentNews)

A true managed futures ETF would be a big hit.  (World Beta)

Low fees doth not a popular ETF make.  (IndexUniverse)

Global

Check out all the Euros piled up at the ECB.  (MarketBeat)

Germans need to start buying some stuff.  (EconomPic Data)

The ongoing shift in the slowing Chinese economy.  (FT Alphaville)

Hence the end of the commodity boom.  (Sober Look)

Economy

Already looking towards a big jobs number on Friday.  (Crossing Wall Street, Capital Spectator)

More signs the employment situation is improving.  (ValuePlays)

The three ugliest economic charts that need to turn.  (Big Picture)

Sometimes it takes a while for the pain from higher gasoline prices to hit.  (StreetTalk Live)

What have Fed purchases done to TIPS market liquidity?  (FRSBF)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

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

New books

Matthew Yglesias on The Rent is Too Damn High.  (Slate)

Ask James Altucher anything with FAQ Me.  (Altucher Confidential)

Mixed media

Megan Garber, “A TED talk, at this point, is the cultural equivalent of a patent: a private claim to a public concept.”   (The Atlantic)

None of us is as smart as we think we are.  (The Epicurean Dealmaker also Total Return)

The non-passage of the Dream Act has left students in limbo.  Philanthropists are stepping in.  (WSJ)

In praise of the appendix.  (Scientific American)

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