I can't remember the last time Barron's had so many useful little nuggets of information, here I am talking little details that might be useful sometime.

Starting in 2002 the Bank of Japan ( the central bank) bought Y2.02 trillion worth of stock to help the banking system. That Y2.02 trillion is now worth Y3.15 trillion. If you take two zeros off you can see that it is not a great deal of money for the government of a big country but nonetheless. The government can start to sell those equities in 2007.

The Fund of Information column had some interesting content on commodity mutual funds. Credit Suisse did a study that found between 1970 and 2004 a 100% equity portfolio (content not defined) had an average annual return of 10.1% and a standard deviation of 9.5% but that a portfolio with 20% in commodities had an average annual return of 10.5% with a standard deviation of 8.5%. Higher returns less volatility.

The standard deviation numbers throw me a little. I don't doubt that the standard deviation would be lower but the 9.5% and the 8.5% numbers are not anywhere close to what I have seen elsewhere. I always thought that the S+P 500 had a standard deviation closer to 15 or 16 but I could be wrong. I'm also not sure about the sample of time. It is very short but included a commodity bubble and a stock bubble. A longer view might have yielded different results?

The Trader column had two interesting topics. One was about whether mega caps will now finally rotate back into favor. Eventually they will. Is that time now? I don't know. I do know that the period of small cap leadership is record breaking for its duration. I also know that the chance of my calling this turn around is slim so I always maintain some exposure.

The other topic was about the NYSE/AX merger and in general what is going on with public exchanges. Some of what was mentioned about a mania I have covered before. What was interesting to me was the expectation of some for NYSE volume to double faster than consensus expectation ( I realize this is vague but there was not much detail given). The article fairly gives the other side of this argument too. I think this may make ETFs an even more important tool for do-it-yourselfers with a long term bias.

If volume were to double that quickly it would be because of hot and smart money coming in. Who can say how much trading in a given name is based on fundamentals versus how much is based on fear and greed but I think a fast doubling in volume would tip the scales further toward fear and greed.

It may make more sense in that light to use an ETF for more, say, tech exposure. You can capture most of the effect with less volatility. At a minimum that should be worth considering.

I don't usually critique comments from the Fox shows but there were two things from Bulls & Bears that made me chuckle. Danni Hughes predicted that interest rates would be between 4.5% and 5%. Assuming she meant Fed Funds, that might have been more insightful a year ago. Pat Dorsey thinks Microsoft will go up 25%. He may be right but I think the stock is up more than 10% (closer to 15%) in just the last month. Another 25% would be a pretty big deal.