Quote of the day

John Prestbo, “Indexing is not an excuse to be dumb. You should invest your money in things that you know and understand.”  (IndexUniverse)

Chart of the day

Abbott Labs ($ABT) christens its pharmaceutical spinoff “AbbVie.”  (Health Blog)

Bulls

Bulls are running rampant these days.  (The Reformed Broker)

The case for stocks over bonds:  the Goldman edition. (MarketBeat contra Money Game)

Barton Biggs is really bullish these days.  (InvestmentNews)

Sectors

Tech and telecoms are overbought.  (Ticker Sense)

The Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR ($XLY) is at new highs.  (StockCharts Blog)

A rise in the SPDR Homebuilders ETF ($XHB) doth not a housing recovery make.  (CNNMoney)

Strategy

Would you put 50% of your portfolio into one stock even Berkshire Hathaway ($BRKB)?  (SmartMoney)

Why do equal-weighted equity indices outperform value weighted indices?  (SSRN via FT)

Why using P/E ratios can be misleading.  (Big Picture)

How to overcome performance anxiety.  (Finance Trends Matter)

A review of the four books in one that is Josh Brown’s Backstage Wall Street.  (Aleph Blog)

Coffee

Private equity investors are exiting Dunkin’ Donuts ($DNKN).  (Herb Greenberg)

Green Mountain Coffee ($GMCR) and Starbucks ($SBUX) are still friends.  (MarketBeat)

Coffee is searching for a bottom.  (Dragonfly Capital)

Companies

Cintas ($CTAS) is a company that takes this whole stock buyback thing seriously.  (YCharts Blog)

Could Google ($GOOG) pay a dividend if they wanted to?  (AllThingsD)

How much would YouTube be worth on a standalone basis?  (Compounding My Interests)

Formula One is headed for an IPO.  (peHUB)

Apple

Making the long term bull case for  Apple ($AAPL) shares.  (Eric Jackson)

How Apple’s dividend announcement affects the outlook for S&P 500 dividends.  (Political Calculations)

Q2 earnings estimates for Apple.  (Asymco)

Seeking clues of Apple’s future from Microsoft’s past.  (WSJ)

What industries can Apple disrupt built upon their “foundation of trust, innovation and ease of use.”  (GigaOM)

Finance

The problem of too big to fail banks has not gone away.  (Real Time Economics)

Is the JOBS Act another example of Congress failing to regulate finance properly?  (Felix Salmon, Baseline Scenario)

John Paulson for the win. Hartford Financial Services ($HIG) to focus on its property & casualty business.  (WSJ)

Checking in on Warren Buffett’s big hedge fund bet.  (Fortune)

ETPs

ETNs are worse than you think.  (Morningstar also ETF Trends)

Who uses leveraged ETPs anyway?  (Focus on Funds)

This hard core specialization, the launch of the Market Vectors Indonesia Small Cap ($IDXJ).  (IndexUniverse, Focus on Funds)

Economy

The US need not panic at the first sign of a tick up in interest rates.  (Free exchange, CBP, Big Picture, FT Alphaville)

Hey gold standard advocates, check out this thing called the Euro.  (Money Game)

Why haven’t consumers stopped spending?  (Bonddad Blog)

Why do gasoline prices around the US differ so much?  (Econbrowser)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

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

Howard Marks and James Montier on whether things really are different this time.  (Abnormal Returns)

Cheap calories and commissions, redux.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

Happy sixth birthday Twitter!  (AllThingsD)

How Bell Labs invented the world we live in today.  (Time)

More evidence that a daily dose of aspirin helps reduce cancer risk.  (NYTimes, New Scientist)

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