Quote of the day

Tim Harford, “Data visualisation creates powerful, elegant images from complex data. It’s like good prose: a pleasure to experience and a force for good in the right hands, but also seductive and potentially deceptive.”  (Tim Harford)

Chart of the day

The Tesla ($TSLA) story is going to end in tears.  (UpsideTrader)

Markets

Uh oh. USA Today has figured out the stock market is on a tear.  (All Star Charts)

Interest rate-sensitive sectors are getting whacked.  (Bespoke, StockCharts Blog, All Star Charts, Afraid to Trade)

Sell in May is not a one-month strategy. (MoneyBeat)

Bond yields are rising: fear or cheer?  (MoneyBeat, research puzzle pix, FT Alphaville)

Just how big is the credit bubble?  (Breakingviews)

Housing

The housing recovery still has plenty of room to go.  (Calafia Beach Pundit, FT)

Mortgage rates are higher and homebuilder stocks are hurting.  (Bespoke, Money Game)

Are margin loans helping fund higher real estate prices?  (Term Sheet)

Strategy

Do REITs blow up if interest rates rise? It depends.  (Turnkey Analyst)

Do markets undervalue highly profitable firms?  (Morningstar)

Emotions are an important feedback mechanism for traders.  (TraderHabits)

Only one pattern matters for investors: your behaviors.  (Bucks Blog)

Companies

Tim Cook of Apple ($AAPL) doesn’t seem to be worried about much these days.  (GigaOM, AllThingsD, Fortune)

Apple sure did time that huge bond sale well.  (dshort)

Does Google ($GOOG) have a cash problem?  (Quartz)

CEOs are not nearly afraid enough.  (NYTimes)

ETFs

Smart beta is fine so long as it is not “horribly complex” and cheaply implemented.  (FT)

Everything you need to know about the Cambria Shareholder Yield ETF ($SYLD).  (ETFdb)

Global

What’s behind the Mexican market sell-off?  (Bonddad Blog, MoneyBeat)

The Russian economy is in transition.  (QFinance)

Economy

Business cycle risks remain low.  (Capital Spectator)

In praise of slow GDP growth.  (The Reformed Broker)

Consumers have completely turned around their view on stocks in the past year.  (Real Time Economics, Mark Hulbert)

Another refutation of Reinhart and Rogoff on debt and growth.  (Quartz)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

A Q&A with Mebane Faber on his new e-book Shareholder Yield: A Better Approach to Dividend Investing.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

On the economics of high school yearbooks.  (Slate)

On the geography of name popularity.  (Big Think)

How happiness changes over time, usually for the better. (the Atlantic)

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