Thursday Link Dump

It's Thursday, and that means I don't teach any classes. And since I've done my prep work for the week, it's RESEARCH TIME!

Financial News Online reports on trends in "buy" ratings by analysts.

The New Economist reports that (gasp!) Amazon.com price discriminates in textbooks. The good news is that there may be an arbitrage opportunity - buy your books in England, and ship them here.

Rachel Koning Beals at Marketwatch.com discusses absolute return funds - mutual funds that follow hedge fund-like strategies.

Mark Cuban's Sharesleuth.com just posted another piece. This one breaks down some suspicious numbers at UTEK Corp (Amex: UTK), a so-called technology-transfer company. Give it a read - it's pretty interesting.

From the WSJ Online, "SEC Probes Mutual Fund Firms After Settlement In Kickback Case". What I want to know is know did Eliot Spitzer miss this one? After all, it probably shaved a couple of basis points a year off individual investors' returns.
THat's enough to keep y'all busy. And now, SAS (and a hiney-load of very messy governance data) await. So ignore any screams from my office -- it's just the data being tortured.

To paraphrase Torguemada, give me enough time with data in a locked room and I'll get it to confess to anything.