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Quote of the day
Noah Smith, “(G)old pays off when there is an outbreak of goldbug-ism. Gold is a bet that there will be more goldbugs in the future than there are now.” (Noahpinion)
Chart of the day

What happens when bank stocks lead? (Market Anthropology, YCharts)
Markets
The real cost of holding cash. (Business Insider)
Why you should plan for lower P/E ratios in the future. (Mark Hulbert)
Day of the month seasonality for August. (MarketSci Blog)
Bonds
The case for muni bonds from David Kotok. (IndexUniverse)
Why bonds are still a buy. (Minyanville)
The grind
You gotta love the grind (of trading). (Trader Habits)
Venture capital, done right, is a grind. (A VC)
Strategy
There is nothing stable about the portfolio construction process. (Systematic Relative Strength)
Howard Lindzon, “Embrace some messiness.” (Howard Lindzon)
A quick philosophy on long-term investments. (The Real Fly)
A nice review of Michael Mauboussin’s The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing. (Enterprising Investor)
Technology
Has Google ($GOOG) messed up Zagat? (Businessweek)
Facebook ($FB) as the new Microsoft ($MSFT). (Pando Daily)
Is Google more like Apple ($AAPL) or Microsoft? (Bits)
Finance
Steven M. Davidoff, “The hostile takeover is on life support, if it’s not dead altogether.” (Dealbook)
If you are going to insider trade at least listen to the entire tip. (Jeff Matthews)
Do we really want to start collateralizing single-family home rental payments? (WSJ)
Why Wall Street needs to get out of the commodity business. (Fortune)
Ten year venture capital returns were no great shakes. (Pando Daily)
Global
Green shoots in Europe. (The Reformed Broker)
The destruction that is the Chinese stock market. (Bloomberg)
Economy
2Q GDP showed continued strong growth along with a slew of conceptual changes. (Calculated Risk, FT Alphaville)
ADP shows a big jump in payrolls. (Capital Spectator, Calculated Risk)
The case for Larry Summers for Fed chair. (Wonkblog)
In praise of the stock market as economic indicator. (WSJ)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
How do you respond the “The Grind“? (Abnormal Returns)
What you may have missed in our Tuesday linkfest. (Abnormal Returns)
Mixed media
At its best an app can make our lives more in a “straight line.” The case for Hailo. (The Daily Beast)
ZestFinance wants to use big data to create better individual credit ratings. (Pando Daily)
Why non-geeks should be excited about Google Chromecast. (LinkedIn, AllThingsD, Slate TechLand)
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