Listen to: Erik Brynjolfsson talk with Russ Roberts about his book The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies on EconTalk.
Quote of the day
Charles Kirk, “Remember, having more input is not necessarily good and that’s especially true when the market becomes emotional and the media right along with it to sell advertising.” (Kirk Report)
Chart of the day
Check out the spread between stocks and high yield bonds. (BCA Research)
Markets
Is Japan over? (The Reformed Broker, Market Anthropology, Bonddad Blog)
Bullish sentiment has turned tail. (Bespoke)
Signs of a (relative) turn in emerging markets. (Andrew Thrasher)
Strategy
On the “fat pitch” myth. (Pragmatic Capitalism)
In praise of simple investments. (Aleph Blog)
Weighing the benefits of tax-loss harvesting. (Allan Roth)
What happens if you only dollar cost average in down markets? (Systematic Relative Strength)
Companies
What you can learn about investing at the mall. (Vitaliy Katsenelson)
When news pushes aside fundamentals: the case of Green Mountain Roasters ($GMCR). (Herb Greenberg)
Why does AOL ($AOL) want to nickel and dime employees on 401(k) plans? (Focus on Funds)
Technology
Twitter’s ($TWTR) first earnings report was nothing to behold. (MoneyBeat, FT Alphaville, WSJ, FT, Bloomberg)
Does Apple ($AAPL) have a nostalgia problem? (New Yorker)
An Apple growth scorecard. (Asymco)
What role will Bill Gates play in the new Microsoft ($MSFT)? (stratechery)
Does Eric Schmidt of Google ($GOOG) deserve a $100 million bonus? (Valleywag)
Finance
The number of listed companies is on the rise once again. (WSJ)
Checking in on Warren Buffett’s hedge fund bet. (Fortune, Pragmatic Capitalism)
Private equity firms are buying debt not companies any more. (Bloomberg)
The window for dividend recaps is still wide open. (MoneyBeat)
Bank forex traders are a dying breed. (WSJ, Quartz)
Funds
Schwab is rolling out an all ETF 401(k) plan. (ETF)
How Morningstar categorizes mutual funds. (Rekenthaler Report)
ETF statistics for January 2014. (Invest with an Edge)
Global
Why the ECB should venture into unconventional territory. (Gavyn Davies)
Don’t count on Russia’s stock market getting an Olympic boost. (Brett Arends)
Economy
Weekly initial unemployment claims are trending lower. (Bespoke, Calculated Risk)
A January employment report preview. (Calculated Risk)
1 in 6 American men between the ages of 25-54 are not working. (WSJ)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
What you missed in our Wednesday linkfest. (Abnormal Returns)
Bitcoin
How to fix Bitcoin. (The Atlantic)
Bitcoin is growing up fast. (FT)
Mixed media
Is the business news for investors or citizens? (The Reformed Broker)
Entrepreneurs let informal dress bleed into informal thinking. (Seeing Both Sides via @mattermark)
France loves hamburgers. (FT)
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