- Retail stocks have been some big beneficiaries of this yearlong bull market. Bespoke Investment Group finds more than half of the 31 S&P 500 retail stocks trade within 2.5% of their 52-week highs. Only four of those 31 trade below their 50-day moving averages and six are down this year. Macy’s (M) up the most year to date.
- Money market funds yielding virtually zero create a dangerous situation where people tend to chase yields elsewhere, with the stock market being a big beneficiary of that, writes Fred Wilson. “Find an acceptable place to put your money for a year or two at a low, but positive, yield. And then wait for rates to rise. Because they will and you don’t want to be in the wrong place when that happens.”
- “Reasonable reform has almost no chance of passing the Senate,” Simon Johnson notes. “But a well-crafted debate, drawn up on the right terms — and with the support of the president (although don’t hold your breath on that) — could really help shift popular understanding of the issues.”
- Apple (AAPL) got a lot of press last week for its market cap surpassing $200 billion and exceeding Wal-Mart’s (WMT) value. “I always snicker when I start hearing [these] stories,” Paul Kedrosky says. “When we press our noses against the market glass and ‘oooh’ and ‘aaah’ at a company’s market capitalization exceeding something it shouldn’t…let’s just say bad things tend to happen. Eventually.”
- “The trouble is that speculation is to financial markets what claptrap is to the political system: absolutely crucial,” Paul Murphy writes at FT’s Alphaville blog. “Speculators, faceless or otherwise, make markets more efficient by providing the liquidity which makes trades possible and, ultimately, produce more accurate prices…How is it that our political elite does not know this?”
- Most online readers still aren’t ready to climb pay walls, according to Pew Research. “It also does not give me comfort that we’re wasting previous time futzing over walls when we should be paying attention to the big problems we have…dreadful engagement and loyalty,” BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis says.
- Yahoo’s (YHOO) Senior VP of US revenue and market development, Joanne Bradford, is planning to leave the company and become chief revenue officer of online startup Demand Media, Kara Swisher reports. Departure marks a big step for Demand and a “definite blow” to YHOO CEO Carol Bartz’s turnaround efforts.
- Atlanta Fed looks at the discrepancy between the income and expenditure sides of GDP calculations in the past couple of years.
- In a blog post, Google looks back at how it brought its technologies and DoubleClick together over the past two years and its plans for online display advertising in the future.
- Check out who WSJ predicts will win the National Championship.
