Thursday links: confused causality

abnormalreturns
July 17th, 2008

Ten reasons to buy stocks. (WSJ.com)

Signs of widespread gloom. (Infectious Greed)

“Anytime there is a long stretch of asset price depreciation, be it the past 9 months in US equities, or the past 3 years in real estate, the sentiment factors often move to the fore.” (Big Picture)

Short-covering rallies always fool you. (Market Movers)

Quarter-end results for Morningstar’s hedge fund indices. (Morningstar.com also All About Alpha)

Time to raise the Fed Funds rate? (Crossing Wall Street also Calculated Risk)

Patience and asset allocation. (World Beta)

“If you’re inclined to be active in your portfolio decisions, start by looking to take advantage of extreme moments on an individual asset class basis.” (Capital Spectator)

China’s P/E ratio below 20. (Bespoke Investment Group)

Comparing the Middle East ETFs. (IndexUniverse.com)

Confused causality and a clerk’s error. (NakedShorts)

Speaking of clerks, who is looking at the stock loan department? (Daily Options Report, Jeff Matthews)

Putting an estimate on the costs of active management. (CXO Advisory Group)

Be careful what you wish for. Activists get four seats on the CSX (CSX) board. (WSJ.com)

“Flat is the new up” is the hot business buzzphrase for 2008. (Slate.com)

How can the price of oil move so much in a day? (Marginal Revolution)

“The illusion that the companies [Fannie and Freddie] were doing virtuous work made it impossible to build a political case for serious regulation.” (Creative Capitalism via Mankiw Blog)

Did Fannie and Freddie cause the mortgage crisis? (Economist’s View)

Deflation, not inflation in 2009? (Curious Capitalist)

The “must read” economics book of 2008. (EconLog)

Will the mainstream media buy the big blogs? (24/7 Wall St. also A VC)

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