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Quote of the day

David Merkel, “Significant wealth never comes through your own labors or secondary-market investing. It comes through creating a very profitable firm.”  (Aleph Blog)

Chart of the day

AAPL Chart

AAPL data by YCharts

Why Apple and Amazon shares are diverging.  (SAI, Apple 2.0)

Markets

Why we should want interest rates to increase.  (SurlyTrader also UpsideTrader)

Individuals are buying all manner of stock funds.  (Total Return, WSJ)

More signs fund managers are getting complacent.  (The Short Side of Long)

Equity buybacks can only do so much for the market.  (BCA Research)

Why Apple ($AAPL) may have farther to fall.  (Market Anthropology)

Strategy

Why stock price data from the Taft administration isn’t all that relevant.  (A Dash of Insight)

Beware when companies confront short sellers.  (ValuePlays)

Don’t confuse preparation with accomplishment.  (Trader Habits)

Andrew Hall on the best place to buy oil.  (II Alpha)

Research

Investors, wrongly, extrapolate past returns.  (SSRN)

Beware narcissistic CEOs who earn more and overinvest.  (SSRN)

Companies

Has the Mac seen its best days?  (SplatF)

Amazon ($AMZN) shareholders don’t care if the company turns a profit.  (Slate, Breakout)

Is Facebook ($FB) growing fast enough?  (Marketwatch also SAI)

Aubrey McClendon is out at Chesapeake Energy ($CHK).  (Dealbook, Deal Journal)

Finance

Forex volume surged in January.  (FT)

We’re going to need a lot more infrastructure investing.  (Institutional Investor)

Tiger Global is not shy about Internet positions.  (peHUB)

Just much room do actively managed ETFs have to grow?  (InvestmentNews)

Global

Swiss banks are getting tired of keeping track of your gold bars.  (FT)

Europe is going to implement a Tobin tax.  (Felix Salmon)

The Canadian economy is under pressure(s).   (Bonddad Blog)

Economy

Despite a drop in Q4 GDP the economy is doing just fine.  (Money Game, FT Alphaville, Calculated Risk, Free exchange, Wonkblog, Gavyn Davies)

ADP says private employment continues to grow.  (Calculated Risk, Capital Spectator)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

Celluloid lessons from Wall Street.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise isn’t all that.  (Falkenblog)

The secrets of creativity when it comes to blogging.  (Brian Lund)

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