Another week of slow, creeping action in the indices – although this week the trend was generally down. Judging by the state of the presidential race, it looks like the major markets aren’t all that’s slogging through the August doldrums. While the quiet persists (and we continue to hope that it isn’t the calm before the storm), we have just the thing to lend a little excitement to your end-of-the-week routine: some weekend reads.

• The CME breaks down managed futures crisis period performance (CMEGroup)
• Maintaining a high Sharpe Ratio is extremely rare (World Beta)
• The results are in: Financial Advisor magazine’s alternative investments survey (Financial Advisor)
• The Josh Brown/Matt Taibbi exchange on hedge funds continues to stir up thoughtful commentary (Pension Pulse)
• Hackers are getting much better – and faster – at cracking online passwords (ArsTechnica)

And just for fun…

• The surprising modern evolution of the pogo stick (Smithsonian)