Pre-FOMC Homework

OK, so it’s more like recommended reading than homework, but the links below have given me a fair amount to contemplate in the past few days and they may be a good way to mark time between now and Tuesday at 2:15 p.m. EDT.

• Vinny Catalano puts the current situation succinctly: “It’s a Bull Market ‘til it Ain’t”
• Ben Bittrolff at The Financial Ninja weaves together a more detailed tapestry, with some charts, news and commentary that offer a good snapshot of the pre-FOMC markets
• James Picerno at The Capital Spectator on the Fed’s balancing act vis-a-vis interest rates and the strength of the dollar
• Accrued Interest (yes, that really is a bond-only blog) makes the case for the Fed cutting to 3.75%
• Mike Shedlock of Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis on why the credit ponzi scheme is a disaster that cannot be averted
• …and why swaptions are a large part of the problem
• Eric Roseman at Roseman Eruptions says Asia is dodging the bullet because of a lack of leverage in private equity deals
• Tim Knight of The Slope of Hope looks at hope vs. panic zones for the RUT, suggesting we should follow the next big move instead of fading it
• Headline Charts looks at 17 years of advance decline data and says we need a confirming A-D line to move higher
• Menzie Chinn at Econbrowser explains why the labor market is worse than you think
• Monty Silverman of Econocator recaps what the banks have to say about weak payroll data
• Paul Kedrosky at Infectious Greed points out the distinction Jeff Saut makes between 1988-1992 and the current housing crisis. What’s different now? Rising inventories.
• …and Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture draws some parallels to the anchoring effect mindset of investors whose bad trades turn into ‘long-term investments’
• Monty Silverman of Econocator notes that according to Merrill Lynch, assets have not (yet) priced in a recession
• Chad Brand at The Period Capitalist with some reminders on how to best think about insider buying vs. insider selling
• John Brasher’s Covered Call Blog discusses covered call plays on the i-banks going into earnings (Lehman leads off the earnings parade Tuesday BMO)
• Adam Warner at Daily Options Report on what you can learn from options volume
• Ticker Sense drills down on deteriorating earnings in the financial sector
• The CXO Advisory Group looks at a strategy to sell puts for 40% per month (what color is that swan?)
• Barry Ritholtz again, this time with a new historical twist on 9-to-1 days
• David Merkel of The Aleph Blog has an instructive look back at fear vs. rationality in a post-9/11 world
• Mebane Faber at World Beta highlights some recent academic papers of note
• Barry Ritholtz (can you say hat trick?) has a copy of the extremely cool Information Architects’ map of the web (someday this will be great archival history)
• My chimp is smarter than your baby? Maybe not, but it’s very close, notes Steve Hsu at Information Processing
• Speaking of babies, no parent should be without a $170 pocket camcorder, because you never know what’s coming next…