I have to admit that over the last month and a half I have been paying more attention to the Investors Intelligence Ratio, the CBOE Volatility Index and the CBOE Equity Put/Call ratio than I have the Commitment of Traders report for the S&P mini futures (ES).

Over the weekend, I got the chance to look at the Commitment of Traders report and what I found was very concerning.

Large speculators are the least bullish toward the ES than they have been since last November. That was in the midst of the pullback in October and November.

That is something to keep in mind, but that isn’t the really concerning part. The concerning part comes from the small speculator group.

Small speculators are net long 238,321 contracts, which is the biggest bullish position built up by this group since November 2008.

In case you have forgotten, November 2008 was near the end of the bear market — at least in terms of time it was near the end.

Unfortunately, from November until the end of the bear market in March 2009, the S&P fell another 25 percent to the final bottom of that bear market.

From my perspective, I think the small speculators were trying to time the bottom back in 2008 and they were wrong. I wonder if they are doing the same thing now and buying the dip like they have been conditioned to do over the last few years.