Friday links: silver stars

• abnormalreturns
• February 18th, 2011

Quote of the day

Sean McLaughlin, “I write this blog for me. I don’t sell anything. There are no ads. I am not inviting you to seminars.”  (The Minimalist Trader)

Chart of the day

Spot silver hits a 30-year high.  (WSJ)

Markets

Why isn’t the VIX much lower?  (Bespoke also Businessweek)

Putting the last two years of stock market returns into perspective.  (Systematic Relative Strength)

Putting some numbers on the start the stock market is off to in 2011.  (Bespoke)

The quiet recovery in REIT performance.  (All About Alpha)

Has the ‘Bernanke Put’ caused commodity market instability?  (Pragmatic Capitalism)

Strategy

Just how much shareholder value has a company like Cisco (CSCO) created (or destroyed)?  (Felix Salmon, Systematic Relative Strength)

On the challenge of learning spread trading.  (Simple Quant also Dynamic Hedge)

On the parallels between jumping off a cliff and trading.  (Bigger Capital)

An argument for options traders using options-focused brokers.  (Options for Rookies)

Companies

Another bidder for NYSE Euronext (NYX)?  (Dealbook)

Apple (AAPL) is looking to build a cheaper iPhone, not a smaller one.  (NYTimes, Apple 2.0)

Is the worst over for AllianceBernstein (AB)?  (Fortune)

Nordstrom (JWN) buys HauteLook.  Is ‘bricks and clicks’ back?  (Dealbook, ibid)

A tale of the tape:  LinkedIn vs. Pandora.  (Venture Capital Dispatch)

Zynga is laying the groundwork for a public offering.  (Dealbook)

Finance

Daniel Gross, “Unfamiliarity with the product hasn’t stopped Wall Street from cashing in on new trends before.”  (Yahoo! Finance)

There are venture firms that invest in consumer Internet, and the rest…  (WSJ also VentureBeat, Howard Lindzon)

Activist investors are feeling it.  (Reuters)

Our infrastructure desperately needs help…privatization any one?  (Term Sheet)

Pricing thousands of small and illiquid muni bonds is tougher than it looks.  (WSJ)

Should we be worried that the muni establishment is united in its confidence?  (NetNet)

Global

China continues to tighten, this time bank reserve requirements.  (Bloomberg)

Jack H. Barnes, “Germany is not immune to a banking crisis of its own.”  (Confessions of a Macro Contrarian)

Inside the success of China’s Twitter-like service Weibo.  (Businessweek)

Alternative investments are taking hold in Brazil.  (Economist)

Check out the bull market in Mongolia. (beyondbrics)

Economy

Have we seen the low in inflation for this cycle?  (Calafia Beach Pundit, EconomPic Data, Real Time Economics)

Are higher gasoline prices set to choke off the economic recovery?  (Bonddad Blog, ibid also Street Sweep)

MZM is unchanged for two years.  (A Dash of Insight)

No matter how you slice it cyclical unemployment is still too high.  (Gavyn Davies)

The online retailing-state tax story is not going away any time soon.  (Ezra Klein)

Earlier on Abnormal Returns

A day in the life of the ETF industry: fund costs drop while another specialty ETF launches.  (AR Screencast)

Our Friday morning live link look-in.  (Abnormal Returns)

ARTV with Emily Lambert.  We talk the history of the futures markets and ongoing exchange mergers.  (Abnormal Returns)

Errata

Sculpting your information sources.  (StockTwitsFX)

Use a tablet, save a tree.  (The Reformed Broker also Kid Dynamite)

How to craft a “cool and impressive” Twitter bio.  (A Bajillion Hits via kottke)

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Tickers: $AAPL, AB, CSCO, JWN, NYX

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