In light of the recent announcement and the upcoming holidays now may be the best time to check out: The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone.

Quote of the day

Joe Weisenthal, “People are terrible at hindsight. Their memories are clouded by specious correlations, incorrect inferences, political biases, and basically all of the common things that make foresight so difficult.”  (Business Insider)

Chart of the day

SSCI_1213

Wall Street strategists have not yet jumped on the market bandwagon.  (The Reformed Broker)

Markets

How major asset classes performed in November.  (Capital Spectator)

Fewer Americans own stocks.  (Business Insider)

Prominent bears are in retreat.  (MoneyBeat, Dr. Ed’s Blog)

Meet the most bullish strategist on Wall Street.  (MoneyBeat)

The case for small cap European stocks.  (Humble Student)

Day of the month seasonlity for December.  (MarketSci Blog)

Strategy

On the importance of “idea velocity” to active managers.  (Dasan via TRB)

Option value as a function of downside beta.  (Condor Options)

A young investment advisor need not be an oxymoron.  (InvestmentNews)

A lifetime spent saving and investing ends with a boon for Seattle charities.  (Seattle Times)

Companies

Amazon ($AMZN) wants to deliver your stuff by drone.  (CBS News, The Verge, TechCrunch)

The FedEx ($FDX) guy need not worry about his job yet.  (Quartz, Kid Dynamite, Wired, The Guardian)

Dow Chemical ($DOW) continues to shed assets.  (Dealbook, MoneyBeat)

Holiday shopping stats show the migration away from PCs.  (Asymco)

Finance

China plans to ease up on IPO issuance.  (Bloomberg, MoneyBeat)

Hilton Hotels ($HLT) is coming public once again.  (Bloomberg, MoneyBeat)

Non-traded REITs are making a big comeback with indie brokers.  (InvestmentNews)

Funds

The new David Snowball commentary looks at some “consistently awful” funds.  (Mutual Fund Observer)

Seven problems with mutual funds.  (Chuck Jaffe)

The four worst inverse ETFs of 2013.  (IndexUniverse)

Global

Has inflation in China been understated?  (FT)

Where are all the major economies stand.  (Business Insider)

Manufacturing data is looking up in the UK and Central Europe.  (FT, beyondbrics)

Economy

The November manufacturing ISM number shows strong growth.   (Crossing Wall Street, CBP)

Consumers this holiday season are still “very price driven.”  (WSJ)

Lumber demand remains strong.  (WSJ)

Edward Luce, “The case for higher wages is close to watertight.”  (FT)

On the economics of cheap drone delivery.  (Marginal Revolution)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

What books Abnormal Returns readers purchased in November.  (Abnormal Returns)

What you may have missed in our Sunday linkfest.  (Abnormal Returns)

Mixed media

A rethink on the merits of Bitcoin as an alternative currency.  (Business Insider contra Slate)

Why you need to understand your “circle of competence.”  (Farnam Street)

Are you ready for nearly three hours of Martin Scorcese’s The Wolf of Wall Street this Christmas?  (NYTimes)

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