Rhody Trader

I’ve been following the Commitment of Traders data for some time now, finding it to be a very useful indication of when markets may be getting ready to turn, and when they are not. I particularly like to keep an eye on the Small Specs in the mini S&P 500 futures, which is what the graph below from www.commitmentoftraders.com depicts.

The yellow bars are the Small Specs. They are basically the retail market, by and large. That tends to be the group that gets it wrong the most, so watching what they are doing provides some perspective of things in the stock market. In other words, when the yellow bars are above the zero line, especailly way above, stocks probably are not going higher, and vice versa.

The table of how the different groups are positioned provides a bit more detail. As you can see, the Small Specs are currently 58% short (42% long), having been as much as 67% short recently – all while stocks have been rising.

It’s rather cynical, I know, but I’ll start worrying about the market turning down when the Small Specs flip to long.

I caved.

After nearly 5 months without one, I finally bought a new television over the weekend. I never completely got away from watching entertainment in the form of movies and sports and such. I just had shifted to watching online. Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that watching stuff sitting at a computer is sorely lacking in comfort and overall enjoyment.

It’s one thing to have no TV during the summer when you’re spending a lot more time outside, but a completely different thing in the depths of winter when you’re periodically snowed in. Also, I’m a big soccer fan and like to watch football from time to time as well. I’ve watched several matches on my PC the last few months, but the experience hasn’t been that great.

So I purchased a new LG 42″ LCD HD television and home theatre unit to go along with it. I had done a fair amount of research on the matter. CNET suggested that a 46″ unit was probably the optimal size, but looking at the sizes in the store it seemed like the 42″ was more than sufficient. Also, I’m no technophile. This new TV is a huge jump over what I used to have (and my computer monitor), which will be more than enough to make me happy. It’s a 1080p, so top of the line from that perspective, but other things were closer to the lower end. I seriously doubt I’ll notice any difference.

Now I need to sort out my sources. I’d like to avoid getting cable again if I can get my configurations right to be able to pipe online content through the new TV. For right now that means I still won’t have CNBC to flip on first thing in the morning, so I guess it’ll still be Bloomberg TV over their website.