I wanted to end the week off with my favorite quote of this week and some random notes. Ed Clark, CEO of TD Canada Trust, made this comment about his bank’s potential acquisition of Commerce Bancorp for $8.8 billion- “anybody who tells you they got there because they’re smart is stupid. You get there ’cause you’re lucky, that’s the real world.”

This quote comes from a man who may run the 7th largest bank in North America if the merger is successful- yes, part of the strategy of running a multi-billion institution involves some luck. It certainly makes me think that we tend to discount sheer luck as a factor in investing success. To paraphrase Woody Allen, in some cases, 90% of investing is just showing up at the right time and the right place and to tie back to my first post this week about personal finance resources, remember the luck factor when people write about how successful they have become using a particular investment strategy.

1. Is Walmart losing its touch? The Wall Street Journal reports that Walmart is not quite the company it once was. Makes you wonder if Loblaws twisting itself into knots to fend off a Walmart invasion was really that far-sighted of a strategy if the boggy man of retailing is becoming the Wizard of Oz.
2. On a related note, since the world’s biggest discount retailer seems to be on the downs, is bling the next investing trend? Fortune Magazine writes on the rise of luxury stocks.
3. I once read an entire blog devoted to this topic (too bad I have forgotten the site- oh, the ravages of age!) but Million Dollar Journey writes on making money through credit card arbitrage.  One issue with this technique is that you need a lot of available credit to really make money off it (as Million Dollar Journey points out, a portion of your profit is going to be taxed as income so the method is not tax efficient) and you do take a lot of hits on your credit score if you keep applying for credit cards or cancelling the ones you don’t need anymore.

Have a great weekend.