Quote of the day

Cullen Roche, “Your “passive” strategy definitely involves an implicit forecast about the future and is probably more active than you think.”  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

Chart of the day

STOXX_0814

European stocks have had a pretty good pullback.  (Dragonfly Capital)

Markets

Bond investors really are up against it in a search for yield.  (Business Insider)

What sectors are leading at present.  (All Star Charts)

The top stocks YTD are a mixed bag.  (Bespoke)

Strategy

On the power of shareholder yield.  (James O’Shaughnessy)

Why calculating discount rates is so fraught with error.  (Morningstar)

Little things matter in trading.  (Adam Grimes)

Companies

Twitter ($TWTR) wants to reinvigorate DMs.  (TechCrunch also GigaOM)

Apple’s ($AAPL) HealthKit is targeting a market beset by a regulatory morass.  (Reuters)

21st Century Fox ($FOXA) now has its very own activist investor.  (Reuters)

Has healthy eating hit an inflection point?  (Scott Krisiloff)

MLPs

How did the Kinder Morgan ($KMI) roll-up add value?  (Matt Levine, WSJ)

Are all large MLPs now in play for reconversions?  (Dealbook)

Global

Europe’s lone bright spot, Germany, is weakening.  (Business Insider)

Is the Australian economic miracle in trouble?  (FT Alphaville)

Economy

The great risk to profit margins: labor costs.  (AllianceBernstein)

Jobs are increasingly going unfilled.  (Real Time Economics, Bespoke)

Small business optimism is trending higher.  (Calculated Risk)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

Making your own luck in the generational roll of the financial dice.  (Abnormal Returns)

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

Mixed media

A list of alternative investment folks on Twitter.  (Attain Capital)

What makes Buzzfeed worth nearly a $1 billion?  (Felix Salmon also Om Malik)

RIP, Robin Williams.  (WSJ, THR, Quartz, Jim Norton, Daniel Drezner, Longreads)

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