Sunday Link Dump

It's been a busy weekend at the Unknown Household, with two birthday parties for the Unknown Kids to go to. A t one of them, they went roller skating for the first time.

Somehow, in the midst of all this, I managed to do some data manipulation (merging two large and somewhat messy data sets) for a coauthor of mine and get my PowerPoint slides done for my classes for the week. So for a change, I'm actually a bit ahead of things. I'm sure it won't last, but I'll enjoy it while it does.

Not surprisingly, there hasn't been any blogging this weekend. But there were a few good pieces that came up, so I thought I'd empty out my feed reader. Here they are:
Arnold "Red" Auerbach just passed away. The Boston Globe does a pretty good job of summarizing his career: "In two decades of National Basketball Association coaching, Auerbach won 938 games, a record when he retired in 1966, as well as a record nine NBA championship titles, a number he shares with Phil Jackson. In those 20 years, 16 with the Celtics, Auerbach had only one losing season while winning almost two-thirds of his games." As a long-time Celts fan, thanks for all the memories.

From The Marketwatch.com weekend edition: online hacking of investors' brokerage accounts in on the rise.

The NY Times reports on a study by Standard and Poors. It shows that only 28% of actively managed large cap funds were able to beat the S&P 500 this year. This gives even more evidence that index funds are probably the best strategy for the vast majority of investors.

Alina Tugend (also of the Times) points out how difficult it is to calculate late fees and finance charges on credit cards.
And now, it's time to spend some time with the Unknown Wife. And then to sleep so that I can get up an hour earlier tomorrow.