Review: Henry Bennett’s Anesthesia: The Gift of Oblivion and the Mystery of Consciousness demonstrates the weirdness of the brain. (New Yorker)
Quote of the Day
"Taking money off the table is smart portfolio management. It is very different from selling your entire position, which could be brilliant but is equally likely to be a mistake."
(Fred Wilson)
Chart of the Day

What the ‘typical home buyer’ has in terms of a mortgage has been on the rise since 2012.
Markets
- The S&P 500 is not as top-heavy as it seems on a historical basis. (fortunefinancialadvisors.com)
- Individual investors are as bullish as they have been during this bull market. (bloomberg.com)
- High beta stocks have been outperforming. (disciplinedinvesting.blogspot.com)
Strategy
- Josh Brown, "Don’t be a fan, be an investor." (thereformedbroker.com)
- Ten things that WILL happen in 2018. (awealthofcommonsense.com)
- Muni bonds are NOT Treasurys. (wsj.com)
- Gurus had another bad 2017. (etf.com)
Crypto
- An update on how the Bitcoin futures markets are shaking out. (wsj.com)
- Dogecoin was a joke. Now it's a $2 billion joke. (arstechnica.com)
- The fatal mistake crypto-investors are making right now. (thereformedbroker.com)
- Why Bitcoin is a huge Ponzi scheme. (linkedin.com)
- On the differences between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. (vinnylingham.com)
Companies
- According to the Brooklyn Investor, Barnes & Noble ($BKS) is a 'melting ice cube.' (brooklyninvestor.blogspot.com)
- The scope of the Apple ($AAPL) iOS ecosystem is breathtaking. (asymco.com)
Finance
- Why all the so-called Unicorns should go public. (wsj.com)
- Spotify's non-IPO could be the biggest IPO of 2018. (bloomberg.com)
Funds
- Goldman Sachs ($GS) and Franklin Templeton ($BEN) saw big outflows from their mutual funds in 2017. (ft.com)
- Blackstone ($BX) wants to manage more insurer assets. (wsj.com)
- Quant hedge funds are set to top $1 trillion in AUM in 2018. (ft.com)
Economy
- The doves and hawks are pretty even on the Fed. (blogs.uoregon.edu)
- TIPS spreads are showing increasing inflation expectations. (wsj.com)
- Lumber prices are headed for record highs. (calculatedriskblog.com)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
- ETF links: cause marketing. (abnormalreturns.com)
- A (belated] New Year's resolution: get a bigger f*ck it bucket. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Newton's third law of personal finance. (abnormalreturns.com)
- What you missed in our Sunday linkfest. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Top clicks last week on the site. (abnormalreturns.com)