Is the price of coal a 'canary in the coal mine'?  (FT Alphaville) Commodity funds come in a variety of flavors.  (WSJ.com, Morningstar.com) Carl Icahn's activist hedge fund is in a slump.  (Bloomberg.com) The VIX doesn't matter…until it does.  (Daily Options Report) Is FAS 157 to blame for today's credit market woes?  (Information Arbitrage also FT Alphaville) KKR is "still [...]...

I think we are required by law to link to any story that mentions "hedge fund" and "roach motel" in the same sentence.  (WSJ.com) An investment strategy based on buying after really bad months.  (World Beta) "Unconventional thinking is more likely to be found on a lonely path than on a crowded committee."  (TheStreet.com) Portfolio allocation is becoming [...]...

CME Group (CME) snubs NYSE Euronext.  (WSJ.com) "The problem with Anheuser Busch's defence strategy is that it makes the Budweiser-maker an even more enticing target for InBev…"  (Reuters.com also TheDeal.com) More on the death of Bear Stearns (BSC).  (Dealbreaker.com, NakedShorts) Inflation is a worldwide phenomenon.  (WSJ.com) Southeast Asia is under stress.  (Infectious Greed) "(I)t's har...

What really brought down Bear Stearns?  (VanityFair.com) Is Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup (C), a robot?   Yes, he is. (Market Movers, ibid) The "parallels are eerie" between the financial crises of the late 80's in Scandinavia and in the U.S. currently.  (breakingviews/WSJ.com) Investors actually believed Wall Street would support the auction rate securities market.  (DealBreaker.com) For som...

That was close….The Dow flirts with bear market territory.  (MarketBeat, FT Alphaville) Risk management is far more important than the technical definition of a bear market.  (Big Picture) "My pet theory remains that Inverse ETFs have perturbed all sorts of options numbers."  (Daily Options Report) Yet another global equity market ETF.  (IndexUniverse.com) Ospraie Managmement is getting into...