Today is pat yourself on the back day here at Abnormal Returns HQ. Three topics on which have opined have late have come around to our way of thinking. Commodities, hedge funds and the changing business mix at General Electric (GE) all hit our radar screen today.

Kathryn Kranhold at the Wall Street Journal reports on the GE’s move to off-load yet another business to the private equity community. The Lex Column at the FT.com notes how easy private equity funds have made these sorts of transactions for motivated sellers.

Things really are good in the market. Adam Warner at the Daily Options Report notes the ominous nature of ebullience on the part of a usually taciturn CNBC host.

James Picerno at the Capital Spectator on the positive CPI news underpinning the most recent push upwards.

Caroline Baum at Bloomberg.com on what the proper inflation yardstick the Federal Reserve should be using.

Given our interest in the BRIC fund phenomenon we read the piece by Roger Nusbaum at TheStreet.com on the first domestic BRIC ETF with a great deal of interest.

Mark Hulbert at Marketwatch.com on what the Value Line Investment Survey is saying about future stock market returns.

Ticker Sense is showing more overbought domestic ETFs.

Alistair Barr at Marketwatch.com reports on the increasingly crowded nature of the activist-hedge fund niche.

Mark Thoma at Economist’s View on increasing scrutiny of hedge fund leverage practices.

Saskia Scholtes at the FT.com on the growing importance of hedge funds in fixed income trading.

Brett Steenbarger at TraderFeed on the most common mistake trades make.

Controlled Greed likes the news that two media bigfoots are talking about swapping assets, including DirecTV. DealBook notes these negotiations could shut the door on satellite television consolidation.

DealBook discusses a piece in the Financial Times on the changing nature of MBA applicants.

macroblog on what a recent proposal, i.e. inflation indexing, would mean for capital gains taxation.

Accrued Interest on whether USA, Inc. is in reality bankrupt?

We here at Abnormal Returns love Apple Computer (APPL) products as much as the next guy, but the blogosphere is rife with negative commentary on the most recent batch of product announcements. Some we found particularly interested include:

• Paul Boutin at Slate.com on Apple’s disappointing video news,
• Paul Kedrosky at Infectious Greed on Apple’s prospective margins on the “new” iPod products,
• Eric Savitz at Barrons.com on the ho-hum changes to the iPod models,
• John Carney at DealBreaker.com has a love-hate relationship with the iPod,
• Barry Ritholtz at the Big Picture on what the new Zune says about Microsoft’s corporate culture.

One reason the iPod has taken off is its ability to take share from the terrestrial radio industry. Richard Siklos at the New York Times on what changing tastes has done to the radio conglomerates.

Peter N. Spotts in the Christian Science Monitor has a story on the increased interest in using tidal power to generate electricity.

Robin Abcarian in the Los Angeles Times on a study that shows celebrities really are more narcissistic than the rest of us.

A puffy planet? A few years ago all we were thinking about was the puffy shirt. (via New York Times)

To stay up-to-date with all of our posts please add our feed to preferred feed reader.