Review: High Returns from Low Risk: A Remarkable Stock Market Paradox by Pim van Vliet and Jan de Koning is a decidedly non-quantitative look at the low vol anomaly. (Reading the Markets)
Quote of the Day
"It’s easy to hate bankers. But if we want to actually fix what’s wrong with Wall Street, we will need to stop mindlessly villainizing it."
(William Cohan)
Chart of the Day
“Increased availability and popularity of vehicles that allow for cheap, convenient, well-diversified market exposure increases the pool of money inclined to bid on equities as an asset class. It’s reasonable to expect that the result would be upward pressure on valuations, which is exactly what we’ve seen.”
Markets
- Foreign equities led asset class performance in March 2017. (capitalspectator.com)
- It was the quietest quarter for the Dow in 51 years. (wsj.com)
Strategy
- Tony Isola, "The stigma of investing like the “little guy” has led “financial elites” to make many awful decisions with their money." (tonyisola.com)
- April is historically a great month for stocks. Why you should ignore this fact. (theirrelevantinvestor.com)
Sponsored Link
Companies
- Why again did Amazon ($AMZN) shut down Quidsi? (recode.net)
- Facebook ($FB) shamelessly copies features from other firms. (qz.com)
- Tesla ($TSLA) now has a higher market cap than Ford ($F). (news.fastcompany.com)
Apple
- Apple ($AAPL) wants to sell more premium subscriptions, i.e. HBO, Showtime, via a bundle. (recode.net)
- Apple ($AAPL) is developing its own graphics chips. (theverge.com)
- Dyson is the Apple ($AAPL) of appliances. (nytimes.com)
Finance
Funds
- Morningstar ($MORN) is pushing hard into the mutual fund business. (mutualfundobserver.com)
- Nearly 90% of actively managed funds focused on UK equities underperformed the stock market last year. (ft.com)
Offers
- The business classic "Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco" by Bryan Burroughs and John Helyar is still $1.99 for the Kindle. (amazon.com)
- Don't miss out on the biggest discounts ($30-$50) Amazon has offered on its Kindle e-readers to-date. (amazon.com)
- The Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi classic "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" is currently just $1.99 for the Kindle. (amazon.com)
Global
- Hard data and soft data are diverging: which should we believe? (ft.com)
- Chinese corporate bond yields are on the rise. (bloomberg.com)
- Australia has a coal problem. (bloomberg.com)
Economy
- The March ISM manufacturing number was once again strong. (crossingwallstreet.com)
- How responsible is the Fed for the current state of the stock market? (dealbreaker.com)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
- ETF links: the basketization trend. (abnormalreturns.com)
- What you missed in our Sunday linkfest. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Top clicks last week on the site. (abnormalreturns.com)
- What books Abnormal Returns readers purchased in March 2017. (abnormalreturns.com)