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[Joshua Brown]

Stuff I?m Reading this Morning?

They faked the jobs number to get Obama elected last year ? John Crudele (NYP)

Financial TV Wars Heat Up: Maria Bartiromo to Fox Business! Someone keep an eye on Cramer! (NYT)

A masterful thrashing of the ?Stocks are a Bubble? argument. (MacroMan)

How Rob Bennett became the most hated financial blogger on the internet. (ValueWalk) and (JoeTaxpayer)

Hot software stock Workday has had a juicy pullback, is this a good entry? (RiskReversal)

BernankeCare is causing pockets of the market to act strangely. (Bloomberg)

Five years of QE and the distributional effects. (SoberLook)

The ?alternative currency? that is Bitcoin has just crashed again. I?m converting my savings now? (BusinessInsider)

?but what if the Bitcoin Bubble is just beginning? (MebaneFaber)

Another strike against actively managed mutual funds: The Payout. (RickFerri)

Wal-Mart?s running a food drive for its own employees is easily the most disgusting thing I?ve seen all year. (TheAtlantic)

James Surowiecki: Okay but seriously, how are all these web businesses going to keep giving the product away for free? (NewYorker)

Oxford names its Word of the Year for 2013: (MentalFloss)

Cindy Crawford at age 47. Get down on your knees, boy, you?re in the presence of a goddess. (Egotastic)

REMINDER: Backstage Wall Street is now on Kindle!

[Joshua Brown]

The major indices keep hitting new all-time highs, and as a trader, that makes life pretty easy. Basically, you have a bullish tailwind at your back that can forgive your loser picks, while at the same time helping your winners move up nicely.

Indeed, in this era of quantitative easing, which is likely to continue based on the Senate testimony last week of Federal Reserve chair nominee Janet Yellen, I think it makes more sense than ever to buy the "air pockets" in this market. Yet there are some stocks that are just a bit too risky here and probably should be sent packing from your portfolio.

I alerted readers to one such stock earlier this month when I said tech giant Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) was likely on the downslope. On Thursday, the stock vindicated my call, as it plunged as much as 13.5% after a dreadful earnings report that missed expectations and a warning that next quarter's revenue would drop 8% to 10% from the same period last year.

In addition to Cisco, there are some other stocks that have performed very well of late that I suspect could be sell-off targets as we head toward the end of the year.

This selling pressure is likely to come from what I've called the "performance protection trade," meaning that hedge funds and professional traders would sell them to beef up their 2013 returns. Other factors could include a rotation out of a hot sector, or possibly a faulty earnings report from a sector bellwether that taints a particular group.

Here are three stocks that I think investors should sell before any potential meltdown:

[Joshua Brown]

If you really want to get a read on how ?the 1%? are faring these days, take a ski vacation to the tony hamlet of Incline Village on the pristine shores of Nevada?s Lake Tahoe.

Each morning, I trekked to Starbucks, one of the few local sources for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. There, trophy wives line up to buy their chai tea lattes, all tall, thin, and blonde, wearing designer sunglasses and snow boots, as if produced from a Gucci cookie cutter. The parking lot is jammed with Range Rovers and Cadillac Escalades.



Keeping up with the Jones?s here on fabled Lakeshore Drive can be quite a task, especially when they are populated by such names as Oracle?s Larry Ellison, casino mogul, Steve Wynn, and Saudi arms dealer, Adnan Kashoggi. Ellison alone is thought to have poured $200 million into his mountain retreat. Some of these compounds offer private beach lodgings for bodyguards and dog groomers. Junk bond king, Michael Milken, springs for the cost of the town?s annual Fourth of July fireworks display as it coincides with his birthday.

In the ultimate feat of hubris one upsmanship, one billionaire is converting the profits from his check cashing business to build a $150 million, 36,000 square foot residence that looks like a convention center. He has ruffled the feathers of locals by chopping down every ancient pine and cedar tree on the property to max out the square footage, violating multiple town ordinances. Who knew that cashing checks was so profitable?

[Joshua Brown]

?America?s colleges and universities churn out lots of liberal arts graduates?.By and large, the economy doesn?t need all these generals. We?re not training enough scientists and engineers. The high schools used to churn out enough people with technical skills in the fifties and sixties, but not so today. It?s cheaper just to prepare everyone to go to college and pretend that a liberal arts education is going to solve everyone?s problems,? said Professor Peter Morici at the University Of Maryland School Of Business.

[Joshua Brown]

The Chart of the Day is Kona Grill (KONA). I found the stock near the top of the New High List after I sorted for frequency. The stock hit 18 new highs in the last 20 sessions. since the Trend Spotter signaled a buy on 9/20 the stock is up 36.13%.

Kona Grill restaurants offer freshly prepared food, personalized service, and a warm, contemporary ambiance that creates an exceptional, yet affordable, dining experience. Kona Grill restaurants serve a diverse selection of mainstream American dishes as well as a variety of appetizers and entrees with an international influence.

[Joshua Brown]

Coming out of World War II, few Americans could have known about the great era of prosperity soon to arrive.

From 1946 through 1973, our economy expanded by a 3.8% annual pace. Sure, there were a few recessions along the way, but the rapid rise of the middle class, which enjoyed a rising standard of living, helped set the stage for the world's greatest economy. Roughly one-fourth of all global economic activity takes place on U.S. shores.

But as I noted last week, the U.S. is now in its sixth year of weak economic growth. Economists are growing increasingly concerned that we've entered into an extended period of anemic growth. Indeed, the sole purpose of the Federal Reserve's massive stimulus programs was to revive the economy's "animal spirits." But the economy has yet to respond. The Fed is pushing on a string.

Investors may have a hard time seeing this notion as the stock market moves steadily higher. Profits are still rising, thanks to lean corporate expenses, but fully half of the companies in the S&P 500 are expected to boost sales by less than 5% next year.