Benchmarks are the most ferocious of competitors.

Jason Zweig tells us that the oft-cited statistic where investors supposedly pulled $70 billion from the stock market this year is not actually a meaningful number – in real life they’ve only pulled half that amount on a net basis. The real story is that investment vehicle preferences have shifted radically: So far this year,…

Video.

I’m blown away by the willingness of every schmuck who owns a clean suit to opine on the odds of the Fed embarking on another round of Quantitative Easing.  One clown has some kind of formula based on I don’t know I was too disinterested to write it down.  Another changes his mind in real-time…

The GOP has decided to possibly incorporate some of Ron Paul’s ideas into its platform, even as Ronnie has already publicly disowned their Presidential candidate (not a team player, that Ron Paul). But I expect we’ll hear a bit about the Fed and the gold standard this week from the convention regardless.  Here’s Paul Krugman’s…

This whole week’s action is likely to be a giant exercise in holding our collective breath.  Later this week we get speeches from the two most consequential people in the world right now – the Jackson Hole address from Benjamin Bernanke and an address from the ECB’s Mario Draghi. Bernanke famously signaled QE 2 at…

Video.

What happens when the alternative is no longer the alternative but the mainstream?  Bad things happen.  The pigs start dressing like their former human overlords and walking on two feet. Kurt Cobain blows his brains out.  And hedge funds start looking and acting more and more like the mainstream mutual funds and asset managers they…