Friday links: conflicting signals

The 200 day moving average will soon start dropping some substantially higher prices.  (VIX and More)

Idiosyncratic moves in volatility indices require confirmation.  (Condor Options)

Option strategies for the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG).  (Barron’s)

Are (option) collars the solution to what ails asset allocation?  (Minyanville)

“Conflicting signals persist in the corporate-bond market. While demand is outstripping supply for new deals, the creditworthiness of the market as a whole continues to slide.”  (WSJ)

Just what is a “trend day“?  (Fund My Mutual Fund)

How the hedge fund boom and bust paralleled that of the dot-com bust.  (All About Alpha)

The right questions to ask about position sizing.  (Minyanville)

“There are plenty of things to worry about.  Fed policy is not one of them.”  (A Dash of Insight)

According to financial theory Google (GOOG) should lever up.  (Clusterstock)

Intermodal rail traffic is still in the dumps.  (The Pragmatic Capitalist)

Getting the housing starts statistics correct.  (Big Picture)

What “sticky” housing prices mean.  (Calculated Risk)

How useful is the price-to-rent ratio for spotting housing bubbles?  (Baseline Scenario)

“In sum, the economy has a raft of problems that will take a long time to resolve. But none of them can head off the imminent economic recovery that ECRI’s objective leading indexes are promising today”  (Big Picture)

How much blame for the economic crisis should we put on the Efficient Markets Hypothesis?  (Economist)

“Cognitive biases are an embarrassment of riches that lead everywhere and nowhere.” (Falkenblog)

“Of all the economic bubbles that have been pricked, few have burst more spectacularly than the reputation of economics itself.”  (Economist)

What role did income inequality play in the housing boom.  (The Stash)

A big way, food expenditures, how this downturn is unlike the Great Depression.  (Carpe Diem)

Central bank independence is overrated (and unrealistic).  (Aleph Blog contra Economist’s View)

What does “too big too fail” really mean?  (Atlantic Business)

The many ways in which Goldman Sachs (GS) continues to benefit from government largesse.  (True/Slant)

“I doubt that Goldman is making much of its money from high frequency trading.”  (Rick Bookstaber)

Goldman is getting to have its cake and it too.  (Abnormal Returns)

The rhetoric around Goldman Sachs has lost touch with reality.  (Free exchange)

The Daily Show takes on Lenny Dykstra and Goldman Sachs.  (Wall St. Cheat Sheet, Zero Hedge)

A book review of “Street Fighters.”  (market folly)

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  • Goldman is a little bit pregnant
    abnormalreturns, July 17th, 2009 at 9:09 am, Comments: 0

    As the credit crisis rolls on it scoops up villains and victims on a regular basis.  This week Goldman Sachs became, according to whom you read, both.  After announcing blow out earnings the debate over the role of Goldman in the credit crisis began anew.  (A good round-up of much of this debate.)
    Prior to the [...]

  • Thursday links: obsession with growth
    abnormalreturns, July 16th, 2009 at 12:27 pm, Comments: 0

    The VIX is up.  Should we be worried?  (Research Reloaded, Daily Options Report, VIX and More)
    Catching up with June hedge fund performance.  (market folly)
    Investor sentiment is still weak.  (Bespoke)
    “The ProShares Credit Suisse 130/30 (CSM) fund falls under the realm of actively managed funds.”  (TheStreet)
    The State of Massachusetts begins sniffing around leveraged ETFs.  (WSJ also IndexUniverse)
    Is [...]

  • Wednesday links: bonus backlash brewing
    abnormalreturns, July 15th, 2009 at 11:45 am, Comments: 0

    Goldman Sachs (GS) risks a backlash if it pays out record bonuses.  (Clusterstock, Breakingviews, Bespoke)
    Goldman is just better than their competition. (Curious Capitalist, Economist)
    For investors, there is nothing to be gained by moaning about Goldman.  (Andy Swan also Falkenblog)
    Goldman doesn’t always win.  It fails to get GoldmanSachs666.com taken down.  (Telegraph)
    The equity risk premium is no [...]

  • Tuesday links: risk and no return
    abnormalreturns, July 14th, 2009 at 12:12 pm, Comments: 0

    For all practical purposes, is the equity risk premium actually zero?  (Falkenblog)
    “If a certain strategy [asset allocation] worked for your grandparents, that’s probably a good reason that it won’t work for you”  (Felix Salmon also Random Roger)
    Goldman Sachs (GS) reports:  blow-out earnings, higher trading risk and bigger bonuses.  (Clusterstock, Zero Hedge, FT Alphaville)
    Goldman shares are [...]

  • Monday links: second stimulus
    abnormalreturns, July 13th, 2009 at 11:52 am, Comments: 0

    “But to a degree unique among its peers, Goldman has turned the crisis to its advantage.”  (NYTimes also Big Picture, Clusterstock)
    It’s taken some time for Jeremy Siegal’s work to come under scrutiny.  (Crossing Wall Street)
    CIT Group (CIT) is GE Capital absent government support.  (Breakingviews, WSJ)
    Why bother with energy futures with regulatory uncertainty on the horizon.  [...]

  • Sunday links: parasitic trading
    abnormalreturns, July 12th, 2009 at 3:29 pm, Comments: 0

    Just how long run does stock market data really run?  (WSJ also Big Picture)
    The S&P 500 is up against all sorts of moving averages.  (dshort)
    What are small investors buying now?  (Fund My Mutual Fund)
    Checking in on investor sentiment.  (Trader’s Narrative, The Technical Take)
    Is Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) stock finally cheap?  (Barrons)
    “Over the past decade the move [...]

  • Who Is Your Investment Co-Pilot?
    abnormalreturns, July 10th, 2009 at 4:08 pm, Comments: 0

    Did you know that when US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of Canadian geese on takeoff Captain Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger was not flying the plane?  It was then he said:
    “My aircraft,” and took the controls, not because he thought [co-pilot] Skiles couldn’t handle the job but because he was responsible for the airplane as [...]

  • Are asset allocation models broken?
    abnormalreturns, July 10th, 2009 at 1:36 pm, Comments: 0

    The failure of asset allocation during the economic crisis to protect portfolios from harm has become a popular topic of late.  Tom Lauricella at the WSJ takes a look at how asset allocation as conducted broke down and how some practitioners of asset allocation are trying to salvage it as model for the future.
    This begs [...]

  • Friday links: asset allocation blues
    abnormalreturns, July 10th, 2009 at 11:26 am, Comments: 0

    Advocates of asset allocation are going back to the drawing board.  (WSJ also Curious Capitalist, Aleph Blog, Abnormal Returns)
    Who knew?  Junk bonds experience more upgrades than downgrades in Q2.  (Deal Journal)
    Investment grade bonds continue their recovery.  (Bespoke)
    Are investment grade or junk bonds still worth a look?  (EconomPic Data)
    The world of high frequency trading is in [...]