Housing market still red-hot: "If you were looking for signs that the red-hot housing market is beginning to cool, you would have been hard-pressed to find them in the latest batch of economic data." —MSNBC

Austin-area venture investing falls: "Austin suffered its worst three months of venture capital investment since before the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, according to a report due out today." —Austin American-Statesman

Somebody wake up John Thornton.

Another tech-stocks bubble?: "Investors move from complete abandonment of the stockmarket at a major market bottom like March 2003, then gradually through a period of increasing confidence until they get to a point where greed really sets in." —The Economist

Greed is good. TV said it.

Google story moves from irrational to manic: "In day-trading rooms across the globe on Friday, you could smell the stale sweat. It's left over from Thursday, when investors who focus on the ultra-short-term got their first taste of the panic selling that can grip a speculative stock like Google Inc." —MarketWatch

Futurist sees the demise of 'old media': "A respected futurist with a rocky record on stock picks announced this week he hears the death rattle of old media. George Gilder said so at the Always On Stanford Innovation Summit in Palo Alto, California." —MarketWatch

Bubble 2.0 sees the demise of reason when people start listening to 'futurists'.

Hiring incentives going up?: "One way you can tell that hiring is getting harder is when there's more flexibility on the part of hiring teams. Jenna, over on Microsoft's JobsBlog, tells one such story of how we got some smart hires." —Robert Scoble

Where's the Vertical Exit?: "Vertical Search is one of the hottest sectors these days, with startups being built to flip in every vertical and horizontal you can think of. Reminds me of B2B, although there is decided value being created by many of them." —Ross Mayfield (SocialText)

Down on Upgrades: "A recent report from bond-rating agency Standard & Poors says that the second quarter saw the highest number of ratings downgrades in history for mortgage backed securities." —BusinessWeek Online

Fast, Furious Fundraising: "Average fund sizes for venture capital and private equity are set to beat out 2000 levels, a study shows." —Red Herring

Housing Goes Frothy to Flat in Denver Area: "With economists warning that prices in hot markets cannot continue to rise as sharply as they have in the past few years, the experience of Denver's homeowners may foreshadow what could happen if those markets start to cool." —The New York Times

Google powers past $300; earnings expected to double: "Google powered past $300 a share again in Thursday trading, as investors became increasingly confident the online-search giant would more than double its earnings in the second quarter." —MarketWatch

OK, maybe that $400 target for AMZN, er, $350 target for GOOG, wasn't so pie-in-the-sky after all.

S&P 500 at 4-yr high on strong earnings: "The Standard & Poor's 500 stock-index hit a four-year high on Thursday after Apple Computer Inc. said it quintupled its quarterly profit and the government reported increased retail sales last month with tame inflation." —Yahoo! News: Business

Google price target boosted to $350 at Lehman Brothers: "Google, Inc.'s price target was lifted to $350 from $275 by Lehman Bros. on Thursday." —MarketWatch

Sounds like somebody wants to be the next Henry Blodgett.

Google homebuyers trying to hide purchases via anonymous trusts: "In what should come as a surprise to no one, Google employees flush with cash after dumping incredible amounts of insider shares are buying up all the swanky homes in Silicon Valley they can find. Up to 35% of all sales in the upper-end of the market in Atherton are now by Googlers, a local home broker says." —F'edGoogle

Off the World Stage, Taking a Role in Venture Capitalism: "On Wednesday, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, perhaps Silicon Valley's most famous venture firm, will announce that former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is joining the firm as a part-time partner." —The New York Times

The general will be a limited, not general, partner. Ironic, no? No.

Built To Flip Companies Upsetting Real Estate Owners: "While there were reports of 40% vacancy rates during the post-bubble years, office space just isn't filling up as fast as many expected. The problem? All these companies that were built to flip. They rent small offices, and then move out as soon as a big company buys them, leaving the office space vacant." —Techdirt

Kozmo Comeback: "Remember Kozmo? New York-based MaxDelivery seems to be reviving that failed dotcom business model." —Fast Company Now

Housing Markets Pricing Out Middle Class: "The red-hot housing market in booming cities across the country has made the dream of owning a home out of reach, not only for low-income families but also for white-collar professionals." —AP via Yahoo! News

Feds eye housing bubble: "Many economists who once were skeptical about a housing bubble are now beginning to worry about the rapid rise in home prices. And federal regulators are starting to step in by reining  in overly aggressive lenders." —MSNBC

Boom in Jobs, Not Just Houses, as Real Estate Drives Economy: "If housing prices in the hottest markets actually begin falling, as some economists fear, the vast real estate sector could act as a drag on the entire economy. About 40 percent of housing booms in rich countries over the last three decades have ended in busts, according to a recent study by the International Monetary Fund. Busts almost inevitably led to recessions, the study found." —The New York Times

28% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck: "ACNielsen says 28% of Americans have no spare cash and are living paycheck to paycheck." —AlwaysOn Network

Avis offers Hummers with built-in DIRECTV: "If you’re planning a trip to the Grand Canyon this summer, why not do it in a military-inspired SUV pimped out with satellite TV to keep the kids from getting antsy? That’s the deal being offered by the Avis office at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, where you can rent a Hummer H3 with built-in DIRECTV service (powered by a TracVision A5 low-profile receiver; no need for a rooftop mega-dish)." —Engadget

Hopefully they'll start offering these at SFO so I can show up to my meetings on Sand Hill Road in style.

Google stock may be at risk - analysts: "Google investors have grown accustomed to eye-popping overperformance from the Silicon Valley Web darling and have pushed Google's market value to more than $80 billion compared with eBay's $45 billion and Yahoo's $48 billion." —Yahoo! Finance

First Half’s IPOs Soar: "New issues have returned 14.5 percent while the Nasdaq lost 5.8 percent during the first half of 2005." —Red Herring

RSS focus funds? Its over Already?: "RSS is by the way, no longer the new black because VC funds are being established to capitalize on RSS. Where have I read this script before? Oh wait, Java fund!" —Om Malik on Broadband