A couple of classic books for the holidays: Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and The Checklist Manifest: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande.
Quote of the day
Wes Gray, “Trade ETFs like you would trade the underlying stocks in an ETF. If the underlying assets are illiquid, expect the ETF to be illiquid; if the underlying assets are liquid, expect the ETF to be liquid.” (Alpha Architect)
Chart of the day
The health care sector had a great 2014. (All Star Charts)
Markets
Risk aversion is ebbing. (Calafia Beach Pundit)
The American consumer is back, baby. (The Reformed Broker)
Assessing the weakness in junk bonds. (Kimble Charting)
Strategy
Why you shouldn’t take financial market forecasts seriously. (Above the Market also The Mathematical Investor)
Is there really anything investors can take away from the performance of endowments? (Larry Swedroe)
The (modest) historical case for having a global stock market portfolio. (Enterprising Investor)
Trend Following with Managed Futures: The Search for Crisis Alpha by Alex Greyserman and Kathryn M. Kaminski is “academically rigorous with a practical bent.” (Reading the Markets)
Companies
Why outsiders should take Apple ($AAPL) at their word on what they want to be. (stratechery)
Let’s try and put a valuation on Uber. (Musings on Markets)
Video
Consumers are swapping live TV for streaming. (WSJ)
Google Chromecast has surpassed the Apple TV among consumers. (MacRumors)
Finance
A profile of activist investor Starboard Capital’s Jeff Smith. (Fortune)
Activist investors are really feeling it. (Fortune)
Hedge fund investors are trying to push funds towards more incentive and less management fees. (Bloomberg)
Should we get worked up when investment bankers decamp for Washington? (The Epicurean Dealmaker)
Robo-advisors
Fidelity is expanding its automated advice offerings. (InvestmentNews)
Nutmeg is joining the robo-advisor game in the UK. (FT)
ETFs
The SEC is still somewhat skeptical about opaque ETF mechanisms. (FT)
India is a complex country. So are the India focused ETFs. (ETF)
Not every ETF minimizes capital gains distributions. (Focus on Funds)
Economy
The November ISM services report showed continued strong growth. (Bespoke, Bloomberg)
Farmers are storing grains away hoping for higher prices down the road. (WSJ)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
What you might have missed in our Tuesday linkfest. (Abnormal Returns)
Mixed media
We are wasting a ton of time on irrelevant e-mails and meetings. (WSJ)
Grad school is not always a no-brainer. (Washington Post)
How to build your own scene. (James Altucher)
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