Hottest Links: Indexing Isn’t Easy; Winklevoss Twins Are Back

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Hottest links for Saturday-Sunday, January 18-19th, the late edition (see Thursday’s edition here). Get our free daily newsletter (which HAS BEEN RECENTLY UPDATED) and never miss a single linkfest. Also, now if you sign up you will get our new e-book on value investing.

Top stories are included below. Lots of good articles on behavioral finance, value investing, valuation write ups, contrarian ideas, and overall interesting stories. Plus… Paul Singer is back (and its not about Argentina), check out our exclusive on that topic.

Hottest Links: Stories

Paul Singer, the outspoken hedge fund manager at Elliott Management, will not disappoint when he speaks in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum this January 22 [Mark Melin, VW]

Literally No One Believes the Stock Market Will Go Down

A new survey of investment fund managers—designed to measure how much variance there is among investment strategies they’re currently pursuing—shows that no one thinks the stock market will be going down. [Hamilton Nolan, Gawker]

Indexing is no panacea for investors

The behavior gap for those don’t know is the difference between a fund’s headline return and the actual dollar-weighted return that investors actually earned. The difference represents less than advantageous timing decisions on the part of investors. [Tadas Viskanta, Abnormal Returns]

Ingersoll-Rand PLC (IR) Annual Valuation

Ingersoll-Rand PLC (NYSE:IR) is a diversified, global company that provides products, services and solutions to enhance the comfort of air in homes and buildings, transport and protect food and perishables, secure homes and commercial properties. IR-Ireland operates in four business segments: Climate Solutions, Residential Solutions, Industrial Technologies and Security Technologies. [Benjamin Clark, ModernGraham]

Keith Meister Learned From The Best

Would Carl Icahn accept a single measly board seat from a company that he accused of fraud, after being screwed out of a total victory on a technicality? Hell, no. And his protégé won’t, either. [Jon Shazar, DealBreaker]

Did CFP Board Shorten Exams to Lure Certificants?

CFPs are debating whether the CFP Board’s recent news that it would be transitioning to computer-based exams and reducing their length and duration is the Board’s way of growing the number of CFP certificants. [Melanie Waddell, ThinkAdvisor]

Has Your Business Degree Failed You? Answer 5 Basic Questions to Find Out!

Some suggest that college in general should be questioned.  Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, encourages parents and students to “be skeptical” about the value of college. [Anthony Catanach, Grumpy Old Accountants]

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) Annual Valuation

Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) develops, markets, publishes and distributes game software content and services that can be played by consumers on a variety of video game machines and electronic devices. [Benjamin Clark, ModernGraham]

Deep deep value stocks

Deep value stocks are companies with a ton of assets and usually some very good reason for trading far below NAV. A good example is Barnwell Industries, Inc. (NYSEMKT:BRN), a small Hawaii real estate developer and Canadian nat gas company that has traded in the low single digits for decades. [Reddit]

Investing Is a Bottom-Up Activity

The longer I’ve worked as an investor, the more I’ve come to realize that successful investing is a bottom-up process. [Eddy Elfenbein, Crossing Wall Street]

Funds

Having Your Cake and Eating it Too: Tax Efficiency and Performance

Mutual funds can reduce the tax burdens of their shareholders by avoiding securities that are heavily taxed and by avoiding realizing capital gains that trigger higher tax burdens to the fund’s investors. [Wesley R Gray, Turnkey Analyst]

Don’t Hate the Asset, Hate the Price!

The idea of owning gold miners last year had become laughable by the time the final bell had rung. The sector was down more than 50% versus the S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX)?s total return of 30%. [Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker]

gdx

Want Cheap Stocks? Think Frontier Markets

People go to a retail store searching for bargains. If an item is priced at a 50% discount, they might buy it or search a nearby store or online to see if they can get it even cheaper. If a store has a closing down sale, crowds often turn up in droves. Others sometimes do extensive searches for niche stores where few people go but there’s value for money. [Asia Confidential, ZeroHedge]

Luxury prop prices

U.S. Investors Back Hedge Fund for Tilt at Southern Europe

Amber Capital, a roughly $1.5 billion hedge fund manager, has raised $350 million for a new fund targeting southern Europe. [Harriet Agnew, MoneyBeat]

Nu Skin’s Lesson on Short Squeezes

When the shorts are gone, so are the natural buyers and as Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE:NUS) showed in recent days stocks can fall in a vacuum. [Herb Greenberg, Herb on TheStreet]

Wall Street’s secret society is more secretive than ever

On Thursday night, Kappa Beta Phi, a secret society of Wall Street bigwigs, held its 82nd annual gala at the St. Regis Hotel in Manhattan. At these black-tie dinners, around 200 of the biggest names in finance carry on like fraternity kids, hurling insults and dinner rolls at new recruits who prance through intentionally embarrassing skits dressed in drag. [Shawn Tully, Term Sheet]

New Trend: The ‘Bespoke’ ETF

Bespoke ETFs built at the request of one specific investor — a money manager, a major financial adviser or a pension fund — are a rising trend. [Brendan Conway, Focus on Funds]

Rich Chinese continue to flee China

A new report shows that 64 percent of Chinese millionaires have either emigrated or plan to emigrate—taking their spending and fortunes with them. The United States is their favorite destination.  [Robert Frank, CNBC]

16-Year Old Reportedly Wrote the Malware Code That Led to Target’s Data Breach (TGT)

The data breach that has gotten many consumers skittish about using their cards and hurt retailer Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) reputation and sales may be traced to a Russian teenager who authored the malware used in the security breach, according to a cyber-intelligence firm. [Cimateer Investing]

Global ETF And ETP Assets Reached US$2.4 Trillion In 2013: New Record High

US$24.3 billion net inflows in December and positive market performance pushed assets in the global ETF/ETP industry to a new record high of US$2.4 trillion at year-end 2013, according to ETFGI’s global ETF and ETP industry insights report. [ETFGI, AlphaNow]

QE wasn’t a welfare program

The notion that the poor benefited more than the rich from the Federal Reserve’s bond buying program is silly. [Stephen Gandel, Term Sheet]

Is Search Changing ?

It recently dawned on me that I do far more searches away from Google than I do on Google.  I’m not talking about a factor of  2 to 1 or 3 to 1. [Mark Cuban, Blog Maverick]

What Can You Learn from the Rise & Fall of Gold?

Last year was the first time this century that gold ended the year down from when it began. But gold investors have been making investing and trading errors for what seems like forever. [Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture]

Hottest Links: Not The Onion

Lawyer for Winklevoss Twins’ Bitcoin ETF Says SEC Review Going Smoothly

One of the most anticipated steps in the expansion of the financial architecture around the rapidly growing but highly volatile bitcoin market is the planned launch of the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, an exchange-traded fund sponsored by the twin brothers who gave it its name, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. [Michael J. Casey, MoneyBeat]

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