Quote of the day

Larry Swedroe, “Investors would be wise to treat doom-and-gloom books just like the rest of the investment porn industry, and not let it affect their investment plans.”  (InvestmentNews)

Chart of the day

How much is too much to pay for defensive stocks?  (WSJ)

Markets

Check out the big spread in asset class returns YTD.  (Capital Spectator)

In search of a bearish trigger.  (Humble Student)

Two potential market divergences.  (Charts etc.)

Equal-weighted indices

Ten years in a look at equal-weighted indices.  (SSRN)

Don’t get too excited about recent equal-weighted index returns.  (Rick Ferri)

Strategy

Why as a default investors should be optimistic.  (The Reformed Broker contra Institutional Imperative)

Deep value stocks are even a deeper value at the moment.  (Alliance Bernstein via The Idea Farm)

An overview of of what Todd Combs and Ted Weschler have been up to at Berkshire Hathaway ($BRKA).  (Omaha World Herald via @jasonzweigwsj)

Companies

Why hasn’t Microsoft ($MSFT) put a version of Office on the iPad yet?  (WSJ)

Apple’s next big product is likely not another gadget.  (SAI)

Apple is doing it all wrong.  (Daniel Gross)

Chat apps are rapidly overtaking SMS.  (GigaOM, AllThingsD)

Finance

The “first in, first out” rule of high speed trading may be going away.  (FT)

Food start-ups are a hot new destination for venture capital.  (NYTimes, SAI)

Investors are finally pushing back against high hedge fund fees.  (FT)

Wall Street is ‘full of crooks‘ and is now ‘too big to prosecute.’  (NY Post, TRB)

ETFs

Do small ETPs need incentives to attract liquidity providers?  (Pensions & Investments)

Another low vol emerging market ETF is coming to market.  (IndexUniverse)

Global

Italy’s borrowing costs have plunged despite tough talk from Moody’s. (Money Game, Reuters)

Singapore’s market is ripping higher.  (All Star Charts)

More signs point to an Alibaba IPO this year.  (Quartz)

Is shale gas really changing the global oil market?  (FT Alphaville)

Economy

Personal income (and inflation) show little growth.  (Calculated Risk)

The labor force participation rate is shrinking for a number of reasons.  (WSJ)

Corporations view the current profitability phase as a ‘windfall.’  (FT Alphaville)

Analysts are forgetting about the important contributions of Reinhart and Rogoff.  (Econbrowser)

Mixed media

Are MBAs ‘useless’ in today’s innovation economy?  (Quartz)

Four lessons from the Yahoo! Weather app.  (SplatF)

How to be a better friend.  (Scientific American)

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