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Wednesday, January 30, 9:29 AM
Ignore plunging consumer confidence at your peril, suggests SoberLook, as stock prices are pretty well tethered to it (or is it the other way around?). In any case, divergences don't seem to last for very long.
7 Comments
Wednesday, January 30, 8:01 AM
The AAII Investor Sentiment Survey in a graph shows the sharp rise in bullish sentiment occurring alongside the rise in stocks since mid-November. The bulls are at their highest level since March 2011. The bears are at the smallest since a year ago.
2 Comments
Monday, January 28, 12:17 PM
The nearly-always bullish Tom Lee of JPMorgan made news a couple of weeks back by actually sounding cautious. No more, the strategist takes to CNBC to talk about Dow 20K and S&P 500 2.5K in the next 4 years. "There's still a lot of investors fighting the tape ... We still have a taint on owning stocks."
8 Comments
Monday, January 28, 7:27 AM
"The bears are gone, extinct, vanished," writes John Hussman, with the only ones remaining being permabears or nutcases. "And yet, the historical evidence for major defensiveness has rarely been stronger." Capitulation is everywhere, he says, with even Alan Abelson telling investors to let profits run until stocks start to go the other way.
6 Comments
Friday, January 25, 12:14 PM
We're in the 4th phase of a bull market, Laszlo Birinyi tells the FastMoney gang, and it's typically the strongest phase and lasts nearly a year. Don't forget animal spirits, he says, noting CMG, TIF, ISRG all warned, all got hammered, and all recovered. The sudden flows into stock funds? "I don't subscribe to the theory that the retail investor is the last one in."
7 Comments
Thursday, January 24, 8:07 AM
The bullish reading on the AAII Investor Sentiment Survey starts to near an extreme level, rising 8.4 points this week to 52.3%. The last time it was this high was Jan. 2011 - not the worst time to buy, but not the best either. The spread over bears rises to 28 points.
4 Comments
Wednesday, January 23, 9:53 AM
A macro headwind for the market - the Citigroup Economic Surprise Index turns negative for the first time since late April. It was a pretty good time to lighten up then, as were the last few times this indicator turned from green to red.
3 Comments[U.S. Economy]
Wednesday, January 23, 6:58 AM
Nearly 80% of the individual stocks in the S&P 500 are overbought, according to Bespoke. Looking at a 5-year chart, the group notes this indicator is as mean-reverting as it gets. High levels of overbought stocks tend to move to low levels rather quickly.
4 Comments
Tuesday, January 22, 11:27 AM
"It's as good as it gets in the U.S.," a wildly bullish David Tepper tells Bloomberg. "This country is on the verge of an explosion of greatness." Be long the "risk things," he says, and avoid Treasurys, the Swiss franc, and the yen. He's as blunt as ever: "I'd rather work at McDonald's than the sell side."
30 Comments[Breaking News]
Saturday, January 19, 12:30 PM
"High-yield bond yields are lower than the S&P's earning yield for the first time ever," says a very bullish Oscar Schafer at the Barron's Roundtable (earlier). He says no one is talking about stocks at cocktail parties, but he does hear conversation about fixed income (that's some party). Pension funds hiding in bonds for "riskless returns" are in for a surprise.
7 Comments[Quick Ideas]
Tuesday, January 15, 7:42 AM
More on the BAML fund manager survey: The survey's gauge of risk-appetite soars to its highest level since Jan. 2004, and is confirmed by manager cash levels dropping to about their lowest level ever.
Comment!
Tuesday, January 15, 7:37 AM
Early notes from the BAML fund manager survey shows respondents at their most bullish in 2 years and the most overweight banks since 2007. Allocations to eurozone equities are the highest in 5 years. The BAML read was notable for much of 2012 for showing extreme bearishness among fund managers, but had turned optimistic at the end of the year.
12 Comments
Monday, January 14, 10:34 AM
Sell? The last 3 times (chart, via Helene Meisler) Birinyi's Blogger Sentiment Poll showed this low level of bearishness, the S&P was on the cusp of a sizable correction.
2 Comments[Quick Ideas]
Monday, January 14, 9:24 AM
The S&P is within a hair of joining John Hussman's short list of "Who's Who of Awful Times to Invest." The combination of high PEs, strong price momentum, strong sentiment, and rising Treasury yields has been "consistently hostile for stocks over the past century."
Comment!
Friday, January 11, 1:30 PM
More on equity fund inflows: Extreme moves such as what's been seen early in 2013 are somewhat rare (graph) and often a good contrarian indicator for what the market might do over the following 3 months. The evidence, however, remains mixed, says Nomura's Mark Diver, as other indicators he follows are not flashing such bearish signals.
9 Comments
Thursday, January 10, 2:47 PM
The rally in the S&P should peak close to 1500 (2% above its current level), says Tom DeMark, calling for at least a 5.5% correction from that point. The well-followed technician has or has had the ear of some of the hedge fund world's biggest guns. He's currently basking in his Dec. 4 bottom call on China, since which the Shanghai Composite has risen 16%.
6 Comments[Quick Ideas]