The following is an excerpt from Buying a Home: The Missing Manual. At the end I've included two sidebars (in red) on related topics.

Thanks for checking in with us this weekend.  Here are the items our readers clicked most frequently on Abnormal Returns Now and Abnormal Returns Classic for the week ended Friday, August 27th.  Where applicable the description is as it reads in the relevant linkfest.

Abnormal Returns Now:

Markets love political gridlock and an opportunity to test that theory should arrive as soon as Monday as global equity bourses absorb news of an Australian election in which there is no clear-cut winner.
This is really good news for mining companies like BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP) and Rio Tinto (NYSE: RTP) because election gridlock puts the controversial mining tax Australia looked to enact in jeopardy.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, 48, and opposition leader Tony Abbott, 52, will need to broker deals with lawmakers to pass legislation after neither major party won enough seats to

If you still read newspapers like me, you may have come across an advertisement like this one recently touting an abnormally high CD rate in last Sunday’s issue:

Tail risk hedging strategies are all the rage.  (WSJ also The Reformed Broker)