Links: Play it Where it Lies

It has been almost a month since I posted my last set of links, so I am going to bend the rules a little to incorporate posts of note from the last three weeks or so that I consider to have a fair amount of enduring value and are important to have in my personal archives. At this stage in the game, most of this is not breaking news, but hopefully these links will still provide some excellent fodder for contemplation.

Going forward, if you are looking for a set of links to give you a nearly real-time snapshot of the who is thinking what in the investment world, I highly recommend you check out the excellent links provided by Abnormal Returns and Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture.

In semi-random order:

• Larry McMillan in Barron's makes the case for why VIX options may offer better portfolio insurance than SPX options
  
• David Gordon of the Deipnosophist puts some of the recent credit spread issues in historical context
• David Kneupper of the dk Report elaborates on the predictive power of the IBD100
• CH Tan at Cougar Jump captures the 12 stocks that salmoned upstream on three consecutive days last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with increased volume
• From Options Doggy comes the CEO quote of the month, on the lure of retirement
• The Lauriston Letter outlines a trading strategy which combines the VIX and put to call ratios (two of my two favorite indicators)
• Jeff Kohler of Option Addict has four reasons not to trade VIX options (I generally agree with his thinking here)
• Eddy Elfenbein of Crossing Wall Street unveils the magic of bullish Wednesdays
• Brett Steenbarger at TraderFeed highlights his favorite articles and much more (bookmark this one!)
• Simply Options Trading has a list of some sector rotation resources
• Bespoke Investment Group studies net analyst upgrades and downgrades to see if they can predict market direction (it appears they cannot)…and talks about why earnings guidance may not matter
• Corey at Afraid to Trade has some insight into the technical damage caused by earnings misses
• The CXO Advisory Group offers tepid support to moving average crossover systems
• I.L. at musings of a trader flags research showing the validity of the head and shoulders pattern
• Bill Gross of PIMCO talks about the implications of the rising cost of financing and other issues in his August 2007 outlook
• James Hamilton of Econbrowser examines how relevant OPEC is
• Chris Geerlings in Financial Sense outlines four scenarios for US oil reserves
• Chris Perruna notes a divergence between oil stocks and the commodity
• Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture looks at the divergence between oil and natural gas
• Pradeep Bonde at Stockbee examines two short selling strategies from Mark Boucher
• Brett Steenbarger at TraderFeed offers some thoughts on anticipating stock market volatility…researches what happens after markets gap down and gap up…and talks about opening range breakouts
• David Merkel at The Aleph Blog has 25 ways to reduce portfolio risk
• Macro Man has an excellent overview of Chinese Trade
• …and David Altig at macroblog thinks that it will be longer than most expect before the Chinese economy fulfills our collective expectations
• Mebane Faber of World Beta discusses a new $25 billion managed futures fund
• David Merkel is at it again, this time tinkering with the Fed Model
• From the what’s-in-a-name department comes the CXO Advisory Group’s study of the successful Decision Moose asset allocation framework
• Tom Lydon at ETF Trends suggests a closer look at a new asset class: foreign real estate ETFs
• Maoxian offers up an indirect comparison of the brain of an undergraduate and someone about to get an MBA
• Stephen Leavitt of the Freakonomics Blog shines some much needed light on in-flight ‘news’ programs offered by airlines
• Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture has some ideas on when to buy low…for items other than stocks
• Uglychart has some suggestions on which fruits and vegetables should be organic only in your shopping cart
• Numeric Life has a warning out that obesity is contagious
• …and finally, Matt at Paleo-Future has a peek at my next vehicle