Steven DeSanctis who heads up Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Equity Strategy/High Yield Strategy group makes the case for why M&A should pick up beyond the slightly better environment we saw in 2013. He notes that the cost of borrowing is still historically low, that companies who’ve been the acquirer in a deal have seen gains…

Here were the most read posts on TRB this week, in case you missed them: Periodic Table of Investment Returns 1994-2013  The Relentless Bid, Explained The Trouble with Relentless Bid Theories 8 Things I Learned from Warren Buffett this Weekend  Nonsense Forecasts The 2007 Top vs Today    

Who says QE is ineffective? If you’re an owner of real estate or financial assets, it’s pretty darn f*cking effective. From the Wall Street Journal: The net worth of U.S. households and nonprofit organizations rose 14% last year, or almost $10 trillion, to $80.7 trillion, the highest on record, according to a Federal Reserve report…

I’m really excited for the new Fox series Cosmos, which was produced in conjunction with National Geographic and promises to turn your high-def TV into a kaleidoscope of awesome this Sunday night at 9pm. I know it’s on up against The Walking Dead and the series finale of True Detective, but somehow you need to…

from the New York Times: This is what it boils down to: Britain is ready to betray the United States to protect the City of London’s hold on dirty Russian money. And forget about Ukraine. Britain thinks of itself as a trading nation, open for business, but it no longer has a “mission.” Any moralizing…

Nothing not to like in this month’s make-believe economic report that will be revised seven times before finally being put to bed sometime in the future. It stands in stark contrast to the January disappointment, which goes to show that, well, nothing matters. Either way, the taper’s on for the March FOMC meeting. It probably…

Video

Jerome P. Crabb said that “Crime is to man as fleas are to dog, the likelihood of its presence increases as the quality of one’s personal circumstances decreases.” You may or may not subscribe to the theory that people usually do bad things when they’re forced to and steal when their backs are against the…

My friend Jon Krinsky, technical analyst at MKM Partners, has been killing it with some really key charts lately – many of which I’ve been featuring here on TRB. No one has ever been able to pick a market top using fundamentals, but technicals can sometimes offer clues toward trend changes in buyer/seller behavior at…