* Howard Marks: Gold is a lot like religion

* John Carney: The European Union is over

* Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London rises early, European shares surge and the Nikkei gains 1.5%

* Netflix (NFLX) CEO Reed Hastings takes on the shorts

* Gift cards, anyone? Sorry, but this year’s hot gifts are sold out

* Silicon Valley heads north: There’s an office boom in SF’s SoMa

* Felix Salmon suggests that Peter Wallison (of Nocera vs. Wallison fame) has no clothes

* If it’s a weekday, then Moody’s must be considering another sovereign downgrade. Today it’s Portugal.

* Andrew Ross Sorkin: The next Wikileaks dump could be embarrassing for Bank of America, but truly devastating for U.S. banking regulators.

* BIG deal: Cerberus has agreed to sell Chrysler Financial to TD Bank (TD) for $6.3 billion. Not sure exactly how much of that is actual cash or stock for Cerberus — news just broke, details coming in 8:30am conference call — but remember that Cerberus originally paid $7.4 billion for 80% of Chrysler Holdings (including the busted auto arm). Obviously a bad deal, but perhaps not the disaster it could have been.

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* Venture capitalists get surveyed on the 2011 investment outlook:

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