Quote of the day

Cullen Roche, “Holding some cash is not necessarily a bad thing. What’s bad is holding most of your money in the form of cash. That is a nearly guaranteed losing strategy.”  (Pragmatic Capitalism also Globe and Mail)

Chart of the day

Apple ($AAPL) is now 13% of Nasdaq market capitalization, roughly the same as Microsoft’s ($MSFT) decade-ago-peak.  (Paul Kedrosky)

Markets

Transport weakness is not a big deal.  (Mark Hulbert)

I-bonds vs. TIPS: one of them yields almost 2% more.  (E-piphany via @davidschawel)

Strategy

Focusing on the data is great, but….  (The Reformed Broker)

How to survive turbulent markets: quality.  (Vitaliy Katsenelson)

Four common trading mistakes.  (Ivanhoff Capital)

Making sense of low volatility investing.  (IndexUniverse)

Personal finance

Younger Americans are getting religion when it comes to saving.  (WSJ)

Is the fiduciary standard for financial planners a joke?  (Total Return)

Companies

Why Google ($GOOG) stock is soaring: cash flow.  (SAI)

Putting Apple iPhone 5 demand in perspective.  (Asymco)

Facebook ($FB) has been selling ads wrong.  (SAI)

New York Times ($NYT) has $400 million more to play with.  (AllThingsD)

Finance

How good an investment were the bank bailouts?  (Big Picture)

Trading patents is a tricky business to say the least.  (Dealbook)

The BBA’s role in Libor is no more.  (FT, WSJ)

RIP, the Smith Barney name (kinda).  (The Reformed Broker, Deal Journal)

Funds

Everybody wants to self-index these days.  (IndexUniverse)

SSgA is leaving commodities out of a new managed futures fund.  (InvestmentNews)

John Bogle on the need for a new corporate bond index.  (Money & Markets)

Good luck new ETFs trying to break the $1 billion barrier.  (IndexUniverse)

Global

World trade growth has collapsed.  (Money Game)

How’s the UK economy doing?  (FT Alphaville)

Poland’s government is putting the squeeze on state-controlled companies for dividends.  (beyondbrics)

Economy

Case-Shiller shows rising home prices.  (Calculated Risk, Real Time Economics)

Consumer confidence soars, but only for higher income individuals and Democrats.  (MarketBeat, Bespoke, Gallup)

Temp staffing jumps.  (Value Plays)

We will never really know how much QE3 helped (or didn’t) the economy.   (NYTimes)

A review of the world of econtrolls.  (Noahpinion)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

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

Mixed media

The diseconomies of law school.  (DealBook, The Daily Beast)

On the (growing) state of social media in finance.  (Markit)

If Kickstarter isn’t a store, what is it?  (Digitopoly)

A review of Quartz.  (Nieman Journalism Lab)

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