This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Richard Ennis (CFA Institute): The uncorrelated return myth, November/December 2009.

• Peter Clarke (Financial Times): How to avoid a repeat of the Great Crash, October 28, 2009. The chain of events leading from a collapse in stock prices on Wall Street to a Great Depression has leapt from history with an entirely fresh verisimilitude. John Authers (Financial Times): GDP grows, but pain remains, October 29, 2009. US GDP numbers were a good enough reason to halt the return of risk aversion, but the key to whether risk appetite can return depends on US employment data.

• Economist.com: As joyless recovery, October 29, 2009. New figures suggest that America has at last moved out of recession.

The economy continued to show signs of recovery from the worst recession in 60 years as the total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits dropped for the first time since January, the Labor Department reported yesterday (Thursday).

The good news came in spite of a small jump in initial applications for state unemployment insurance, which rose by a more-than-expected 3,000 to 608,000 in the week ended June 13. Analysts polled byReuters were expecting claims to dip to 600,000 from a previously reported 601,000.

But analysts were largely focused on a trend in continuing claims, which tracks jobless workers who stayed on government benefit rolls.

Those claims plunged by 148,000 to a smaller-than-anticipated 6.69 million in the week ended June 6, the latest week for which data was available. That is the lowest number since May 9, and the largest one-week drop since November 2001, Reuters reported.

And in another sign the labor

All around the world this Friday, investors are wringing their hands. The papers are full of the cause. More job losses. Slower growth. Bankruptcies. Debt.  There. Don’t you feel better now?

Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal said things are going to get worse before they get better, but that they should start getting better around, oh, say, mid next year. “For the household sector, this will be the worst event we’ve had in the post-World War II period” says Bruce Kasman of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Event? A rock concert is an event. A wedding is an event. A spelling bee is an event. A recession/global depression is not just an event. It’s a way of life, at least for awhile.

In the stock markets, Aussie stocks followed the negative lead set by New York overnight. And boy was it negative. It wasn’t so much the size of the fall