Quote of the day
Nicholas Colas, “The chance that you possess the marginal information to catch a stock at an inflection point is essentially zero. Traders know that; analysts tend to forget it.” (TRB)
Chart of the day
Lumber has been going down all year. What happens to homebuilders if it breaks higher? (@andrewthrasher)
Markets
The bull case: more central bank liquidity. (Business Insider)
A case for lower volatility: fewer economic surprises. (Bloomberg)
A managed futures heavyweight has waded into cash equities. (eFinancialNews)
How Obamacare affected health care stocks. (Bespoke)
A review of some of the “parasites of finance.” (Bloomberg View)
Strategy
Two ways to improve a momentum strategy. (Millenial Invest)
On the illusory nature of high dividend yields. (Aleph Blog, Morningstar)
What does Warren Buffett think about about using quantitative investing tools? (Turnkey Analyst)
An interview with David Aronson author of Statistically Sound Machine Learning for Algorithmic Trading of Financial Instruments. (CSS Analytics)
Companies
Is it a tech bubble or something else? (GigaOM)
Is Apple ($AAPL) chasing a fashion multiple? (stratechery)
IBM ($IBM) has got a growth problem. (Recode)
It is now time for Pinterest to start earning some money. (Pando Daily)
Finance
Why do investors seem so willing to pay hedge fund mangers so much? (Rational Irrationality)
Why does anyone need to pay a hedge fund to own Bitcoin? (FT Alphaville)
Not every activist investor goes in for high profile fights. (CNBC)
Finance
The carcass of Lehman Brothers was worth a lot more than anyone thought initially. (Bloomberg)
The case for standardized private equity agreements. (Term Sheet)
Bank CEOs get paid for asset size, not performance. (MoneyBeat)
ETFs
Bill Sharpe is no big fan of ‘smart beta’ strategies. (dshort)
ETF statistics for April 2014. (Invest with an Edge)
Global
Indian stocks have had a nice run and now look stretched valuation-wise. (Macro Man also ETF)
The Alibaba IPO is bigger than you think. (Pando Daily)
Economy
April retail sales were no great shakes. (Calculated Risk, Capital Spectator)
Small business confidence is still low but improving. (Sober Look)
The US labor market is slowly healing. (NYTimes)
On the demise of small new enterprises in the US. (The Atlantic)
Idealistic economists are a vanishing breed. (Quartz)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
What you may have missed in our Monday linkfest. (Abnormal Returns)
Mixed media
On the value of pundits who show up every day. Insights from Joshua Brown and Jeff Macke’s Clash of the Financial Pundits: How the Media Influences Your Investment Decisions for Better or Worse. (The Daily Ticker)
An interview with Steven Levitt co-author of Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain. (Business Insider)
You can support Abnormal Returns by shopping at Amazon. Don’t forget to follow us on StockTwits and Twitter.
