‘Tis the season. Check out Brenda Jubin’s favorite books for 2013 at Reading the Markets including Building Reliable Trading Systems: Tradable Strategies That Perform as they Backtest and Meet Your Risk-Reward Goals by Keith Fitschen.
Quote of the day
Joshua Brown, “I sure hope the US stock market pauses or corrects soon – because otherwise it’s going to be a complete and total permabear massacre.” (The Reformed Broker)
Chart of the day

It’s historically the most wonderful time of the year for stocks. (Bespoke)
Markets
January is the month for junk stocks. (Focus on Funds)
Options expiration week in December is historically bullish. (Quantitative Edges)
Keep an eye on commodities as a contrarian play. (FT)
2013 has left the gold complex in tatters. (IndexUniverse, Bloomberg, MoneyBeat)
Small cap stocks have had a heck of a decade. (Capital Spectator)
Strategy
Is Barry too bullish? (Barry Ritholtz, Institutional Imperative)
Now is the time to do some tax-loss harvesting…if you have any. (IndexUniverse)
Pick your favorite bubble definition. (Turnkey Analyst)
Technology
Why Google ($GOOG) is going to be everywhere in 2014. (Howard Lindzon)
How the ‘Internet of things‘ helps push aside the web as we know it. (Quartz)
The smartphone as wallet. (A VC)
An enhanced retail experience is the hot new thing for tech companies. (NYTimes)
2014 will likely see more people pulling the plug on cable. (The Daily Beast)
How much investing in “innovation” do VCs really do? (Information Arbitrage)
Finance
Companies just can’t stop doing share buybacks. (WashingtonPost)
Are companies doing the right thing with their recent borrowings? (Business Insider)
Why aren’t even more deals getting done? (FT Alphaville)
On the implications of big data for sports and investing. (Institutional Investor)
ETFs
Why doesn’t this dividend growth ETF actually grow its dividend? (Random Roger, InvestmentNews)
Do bank loan fund investors really know what they are buying? (YCharts Blog)
Global
What if the global economy surprises in 2013? (The Reformed Broker)
European markets are getting a little pep in their step. (Quartz)
Why has the Euro been so strong? (Dr. Ed’s Blog)
Economy
Can the bull market last another year? (Gavyn Davies)
Should the Fed be worried about the continued disinflation. (Bloomberg)
This week’s Fed meeting will be interesting no matter what happens. (Tim Duy, WSJ)
November was a good month for industrial production. (Calculated Risk, Capital Spectator, Real Time Economics)
The case for a resurrection the Rust Belt. (Conor Sen via @thestalwart)
An analysis of the Bernanke Fed. (FT)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
Simplicity ain’t easy, but what’s the alternative? (Abnormal Returns)
What you may have missed in our Sunday linkfest. (Abnormal Returns)
Mixed media
How did public pension funding get so bad? (James Surowiecki)
Bitcoin has a carbon footprint problem. (Pando Daily)
Why I try not to write bad reviews. (Megan McArdle)
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