Quote of the day

Farhad Manjoo, “Cutting the cord, in Comcast’s universe, just doesn’t save you very much money. ”  (NYTimes)

Chart of the day

Traders now can’t get enough coffee.  (FT)

Markets

Are gold miners cheap or gold expensive?  (SSRN)

The $VIX surge in context.  (Crossing Wall Street)

Volatility is going to increase in 2014.  (Pension Partners)

Checking in on market breadth.  (The Short Side of Long)

Strategy

Are investors using ETFs all wrong?  (Chuck Jaffe)

Self-improvement is the proper goal for investors.  (The Reformed Broker)

Why traders need to build in quality downtime to maintain peak performance.  (TraderFeed, SMB Training)

The short interest premium and asset pricing anomalies.  (SSRN via CXOAG)

Companies

Why Apple ($AAPL) should buy Tesla ($TSLA).  (TNW also Pando Daily, Global Macro Monitor)

How Twitter ($TWTR) could win in online commerce. (ReadWrite)

Want to buy a piece of the maker of Candy Crush?  (Recode, Business Insider)

Finance

Market volatility increases cortisol levels in traders.  (FT, Telegraph)

Corporate pension funds are on sounder footing of late.  (FT Alphaville)

Charles Schwab’s ($SCHW) all-ETF 401(k) plan is a big deal.  (ETF)

Smart beta

New quant strategies are a dime a dozen: why you should be skeptical in evaluating them.  (Pensions & Investments)

The hype around ‘smart beta‘ is getting annoying.  (Rick Ferri)

On the scalability of smart beta strategies.  (Morningstar)

Global

Why the US is falling behind in the connectivity race.  (Felix Salmon)

On the emerging market credit crunch.  (Gavyn Davies)

Economy

New homebuilder confidence fell in January.  (Calculated Risk)

Evidence that bad weather really did affect the economy.  (Business Insider)

Are corporate profit margins finally set for a fall in 2014?  (John Authers)

The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World by Zachary Karabell is a “thought-provoking read.”  (Reading the Markets)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

If investing were free how would it change what you do?  (Abnormal Returns)

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

Mixed media

Remembering ‘Adam Smith.’  (Jason Zweig)

Bryan Caplan, “Don’t marry for money; go where the rich people are and marry for love.”  (EconLog)

A Q&A with Kevin Roose author of Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street’s Post-Crash Recruits.  (Dealbook)

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