The Big Picture

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• Personality Research Says Change in Major Traits Occurs Naturally
• 10 Tuesday PM Reads
• Tech Immigrants: A Map of Silicon Valley’s Imported Talent
• All NSA Revelations in One Chart
• 10 Tuesday AM Reads
• Q2: Fade Forecasts and Diversify
• Today in 1994: Garzarelli Fund Closed
• MoneyBeat: Key Events from Q2

Personality Research Says Change in Major Traits Occurs Naturally Posted: 01 Jul 2014 07:00 PM PDT Source: WSJ

10 Tuesday PM Reads Posted: 01 Jul 2014 01:30 PM PDT My afternoon train reads : • You may want to ignore the ‘next big thing’ in mutual funds (MarketWatch) • Brokers unable to escape their past (Investment News) • Housing Sales Hurt as Fewer Immigrants Chase Owner Dream (Bloomberg) • High Tech’s Secret Weapon: The Whiteboard (WSJ) • It looks like Obamacare is working (Quartz) see also FDA clears motorized exoskeleton for (Circa) • Meet a new potential hero in the fight against ‘superbugs’ (WSJ) • Google Ventures’ Secret to Productive Meetings: A Timer (Businessweek) • For Owners and Brokers, Web Rentals Upend the Hamptons Season (NY Times) • The outrage is not so much over inequality but all the dubious ways the rich got richer (Quartz) • Climate-change summary and update (Guy McPherson) What are you reading?   The Staggering Rise of Mobile Computing Source: Know More

Tech Immigrants: A Map of Silicon Valley’s Imported Talent Posted: 01 Jul 2014 11:30 AM PDT Source: Businessweek

All NSA Revelations in One Chart Posted: 01 Jul 2014 10:00 AM PDT Source: ProPublica

10 Tuesday AM Reads Posted: 01 Jul 2014 07:00 AM PDT Welcome to July. Some morning reads to start off your second half of 2014 (Continues here): • Active management is alive and kicking (FT) • Everything Wrong With Investor Behavior in One Article (Reformed Broker) • What kind of investor are you? (A Wealth of Common Sense) • Many bond-fund managers are worrying that their 2014 gains are too good to last. (WSJ) see also Countries previously off many investors’ radar — including Zambia — issued debt in the second quarter. (WSJ) Continues here

Q2: Fade Forecasts and Diversify Posted: 01 Jul 2014 05:55 AM PDT July 1 is one of my favorite days of the year. In addition to a wealth of historical milestones today (See Jason Zweig's, “This Day in Financial History”), and the coming July 4 holiday weekend, it also marks the start of the second half of the year. As such, it is a good time to look back to see how we got to where we are today. We begin with the opening salvo from the economists, who when surveyed by Bloomberg at the beginning of the year, all predicted rising interest rates and falling bond prices. As Bob Farrell has admonished us so many times over the course of his career, "When all the experts and forecasts agree — something else is going to happen." Had you ignored the dismal scientists and followed Farrell's advice, perhaps purchasing the iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond exchange-traded fund, your year-to-date gain would have been more than 11 percent. Alternatively, you could have listened to the economists, and purchased the ProShares UltraPro Short 20+ Year Treasury ETF. In the first two quarters of the year, that lost more than 33 percent of its value. So much for expert predictions of a great shift out of bonds and into stocks. Continues here

Today in 1994: Garzarelli Fund Closed Posted: 01 Jul 2014 04:00 AM PDT via Jason Zweig: 1994: Remember Elaine Garzarelli, the "guru" at Shearson Lehman Brothers who “called” the Crash of 1987? Her Smith Barney Shearson Sector Analysis Fund, which sucked up $700 million in 1987 from investors dazzled by her forecasting ability, is shut down today as Smith Barney quietly merges Garzarelli's fund into its Strategic Investor Fund. The reason: Right after she called the 1987 crash, Garzarelli's crystal ball went splat. Her fund lost 13.1% in 1988, lagging the market by a gaping 29.7 percentage points — and in the fund's six full calendar years of operation, it trailed the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index by an atrocious 9.6 points annually. Source: Lipper Inc.; Morningstar Mutual Fund Sourcebook 1994, p. 1208. Sorry, Virginia, there is no such thing as a crystal ball . . .

MoneyBeat: Key Events from Q2 Posted: 01 Jul 2014 03:00 AM PDT Fun informative graphic from Paul Vigna and Steve Russolillo:   click for ginormous graphic Source: WSJ MoneyBeat

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