Holiday book time is here. Think about: What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe of xkcd fame.

Quote of the day

Morgan Housel, “Short-term thinking is at the root of most investing problems. If you can focus on the next five years while the average investor is focused on the next five months, you have a powerful edge. Markets reward patience more than any other skill.”  (WSJ)

Chart of the day

GOOG_1214

Why has Google’s ($GOOG) stock sold off?  (Barron’s)

Strategy

Ten New Year’s resolutions for investors.  (Above the Market)

Five life lessons from the markets ups and downs.   (TraderFeed)

Five lessons from the “highly readable” The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment by Guy Spier.  (FT)

Technique

What you can (and cannot) control in trading.  (ZorTrades)

Why you should ignore the calendar when investing.  (A Dash of Insight)

A look at Trade Mindfully: Achieve Your Optimum Trading Performance with Mindfulness and Cutting Edge Psychology by Gary Dayton. (Reading the Markets)

Companies

When will the tech bull market end?  (Tom Tunguz via @mattermark)

Why tech moguls have a hard time when it comes to running media companies.  (Megan McArdle)

Google Fiber is awesome except for that whole TV part of it.  (The Verge)

Finance

Who is going to defend the muni bond market against those crying wolf?  (Alexandra Lebenthal)

Do $0 stock commissions scare the big online brokers?  (Michael Santoli)

Another sign that banks are getting out of the hedge fund business.  (Institutional Investor)

CFOs are overconfident and miscalibrated.  (Alpha Architect)

Not every company goes public at a valuation higher than in the private markets.  (WSJ)

Funds

Would you rather own the ‘All Century Portfolio‘ or Tony Robbins’ version of an ‘All Weather Portfolio‘?  (Barry Ritholtz)

Is a deep value ETF that can’t go to cash a contradiction?  (Barron’s)

How does dividend capture work (or not)?  (Jason Zweig)

ETF statistics for November 2014.  (Invest with an Edge)

Economy

Bill McBride, “Overall it appears the economy is poised for more growth.”  (Calculated Risk)

So much for secular stagnation.  (Bloomberg)

What it is going to take to get more houses built in the US.  (Conor Sen)

A look back at the economic week that was.  (Big Picture)

The economic schedule for the coming week.  (Calculated Risk)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

Top clicks this week on the site.  (Abnormal Returns)

Revisiting how this bull market got started.  (Abnormal Returns)

Podcast Friday: Apple’s billion dollar mistake.  (Abnormal Returns)

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

Mixed media

A compilation of the best books of 2014 including All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.  (WSJ)

The consensus best albums of 2014 including The War on Drugs’ Lost In the Dream.  (Any Decent Music via @ritholtz)

Ten best (and five worst) movies of 2014 including Richard Linklater’s Boyhood.  (EW)

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