Quote of the day

Lee Munson, “Fans of Icahn will point out that he tells it like it is. Not so. He tells you what he wants so he can make a profit. How is he really benefiting average investors?”  (CNN Money)

Chart of the day

BB bond spreads are back to pre-crisis levels.  (Crossing Wall Street)

Markets

Earnings growth was weaker in 2013 than commonly thought.  (Business Insider)

Wake up people, the market has not gone up solely due to the Fed.  (The Reformed Broker)

How the taper has affected growth vs. value stocks.  (FT Alphaville)

Asset class performance 5 years before and 5 years after March 2009.  (Attain Capital)

Strategy

The problems with smart-beta ETFs.  (ETF)

Pundits all too often quietly give up on indicators after a bad beat.  (A Dash of Insight)

Brett Steenbarger, “The traders who I’ve seen maintain career success are also those who are absorbed by their talent.”  (TraderFeed)

Zero coupon Treasuries as portfolio insurance.  (Brett Arends)

Apple

Apple ($AAPL) didn’t know what the iPad would be used for.  (Business Insider)

Is the iPhone the new digital hub?  (stratechery)

Apple now faces life as a mature company.  (Knowledge@Wharton)

iTunes Radio is now more popular than Spotify.  (AppleInsider)

Tech

A big difference between the Internet bubble and today: accounting standards.  (FT Alphaville, part 2)

Tech IPOs are getting frothier.  (The Exchange)

A fuel cell stock explainer.  (Business Insider)

Two additional problems with Bitcoin.  (Fortune, Credit Slips)

Finance

We will soon a HFT firm, Virtu Financial, trades after it goes public. (WSJ, Business Insider, Bloomberg)

Not surprisingly, trading individual muni bonds is expensive.  (WSJ also SL Advisors)

Activist investors are a pain in the neck for bondholders.  (WSJ, FT)

Of course King Digital is going public.  (Felix Salmon)

Gold

ETFs have changed the dynamics of gold.  (Institutional Investor earlier Abnormal Returns)

Gold has been the best asset over the past 3000 years.  (SSRN)

Global

Chinese consumers Alibaba’s “electronic wallet fund.”  (Quartz)

Emerging markets as dividend play.  (MoneyBeat)

Emerging market consumers are now getting pinched.  (FT)

Investors love Colombia.  (MoneyBeat)

Economy

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

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

Mixed media

The Internet makes like miserable for maximizers compared to satisficers.  (The Atlantic)

There are no shortcuts to success.  (Farnam Street)

How to say no.  (WSJ)

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