‘Tis the season. Let’s face it time has run out to find a gift. Your best bet at this point is an Amazon gift card or a subscription to Amazon Prime for those still on your list.

 

Quote of the day

Bob Seawright, “Sadly, precious few of us exercise truly independent thought very often and none of us does so nearly often enough.”  (ThinkAdvisor)

Chart of the day

SPY Chart

SPY data by YCharts

The S&P 500 hit its 42-record highs this year.  (Barron’s)

Markets

For now, markets are lining up for further gains.  (Charts etc.)

Has the stock buyback wave gone too far?  (Horan CapitalWSJ)

The stock market has spend much of 2013 overbought.  (The Short Side of Long)

Commodity market correlations are back down to pre-crisis levels.  (ETF Trends)

Strategy

The world of trading and investing are miles apart.  (Bucks Blog)

Revisiting Scott Adams’ wonderful nine-point financial planning agenda.  (Marketwatch)

Companies

How many iPhones can Apple ($AAPL) sell in China?  (Businessweek)

Ten disruptive technology themes for 2014.  (The Reformed Broker)

Three themes in the financial services industry.  (Economic Musings)

How fast casual restaurants put the hurt on the Red Lobsters of the world.  (Marketwatch)

Finance

What does a really efficient market look like?  (math babe)

Fundamental index funds work in part because of their low costs.  (Money)

Global

Has Norway’s sovereign wealth fund gotten too big?  (FT)

Large and midcap Indian stocks have gone in different directions in 2013.  (MoneyBeat)

Economy

Ten economic questions for 2014.  (Calculated Risk)

Some additional signs of optimism for the economy.  (Econbrowser)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

What you may have missed in our Monday linkfest.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

Wisconsin is using cheese brine to de-ice roads.  (NYTimes)

How are all these streaming music companies planning to make money?  (WSJ)

There are way too many big movies coming out this week.  (Quartz)

You can support Abnormal Returns by shopping at Amazon. Don’t forget to follow us on StockTwits and Twitter.