5 replies to this topic

[Russ]

"One such barometer is the one maintained by the Hulbert Financial Digest, based on the average recommended stock market exposure among a subset of short-term stock market timers. That average currently stands at 46.9%, up a whopping 43.7 percentage points over the last 30 days.

A 46.9% average exposure level is not excessive in absolute terms. The record high for this average over the last three decades was 79.7%.

So we have a ways more to go before we reach record high levels of bullishness.

Still, however, the recent trend is heading quickly in the wrong direction.

A potentially more disturbing story is being told by the "Crowd Sentiment Poll" maintained by Ned Davis Research, the institutional research firm. The poll is a composite of seven different sentiment indicators.

According to the firm, the average level of this poll at past stock market peaks was 67.8--only barely above its current level of 63.3.

The bottom line? Even if they are not issuing sell signals, contrarians are nevertheless concerned. Mark Hulbert

[porsche911sg]

Russ, that's true, but mark hubert has got a terrible trading record, bearish near bottom, and now when i think it's the top, he is still bullish, rember he got bearish near the bottom in march this year, he got bullish in oct 2007. Mark was was working on sentiments, some news letters were turning bearish right near the top, so as sentiments measured he got bullish... I ve been reading what he wrote since the good old days of the internet, he's got a bad history, right at the bottom in 2002, he became bearish again....

[Gary Smith]

Russ, any link to your information on Hulbert? Below is the latest I've seen from him on newsletter sentiment and it completely flies in the face of what you say. But maybe you have something more current than my link which was from last Friday? As an aside and from a sentiment viewpoint, I've never in my lifetime seen the rally we have had since the March lows and accompanied by such muted inflows into equity mutual funds. The Average Joe investor out there, which this forum likes to refer to as the suckers, seems to have missed this one so far. Most all the inflows have been into bond funds. Also, yet again today, the Merrill Lynch High Yield Master II Index ( the proxy for junk bonds) made another all time historic high.


http://www.menafn.co.....AFAFA5ED28D7}

[watcher]

http://www.menafn.co...9-07EB7FDFEDBA}

[Gary Smith]

Many thanks Watcher and thanks again Russ. Just goes to show how sentiment can turn on a dime. I rarely use sentiment any longer as I've seen too many sentiment indicators to list that have missed this monumental rally. And as far as Biderman and his theories on liquidity and the supply of stock, I don't even want to go there. Better to just stick with pure price and only price. I'm expecting a shakeout but acting on my expectations or the analysis or opinions of anyone else has never made me one red cent so will just stick with the trend (in my case junk bonds) until that trend turns. A trend change in junk bonds would equate to a percentage decline that exceeds the previous percentage declines since early March. In junk that only amounts to some 2% to 2 and 1/2% since they are so trend persistent coupled with such low volatility.

Edited by Gary Smith, 03 December 2009 - 11:26 PM.

[Russ]

Russ, any link to your information on Hulbert? Below is the latest I've seen from him on newsletter sentiment and it completely flies in the face of what you say. But maybe you have something more current than my link which was from last Friday? As an aside and from a sentiment viewpoint, I've never in my lifetime seen the rally we have had since the March lows and accompanied by such muted inflows into equity mutual funds. The Average Joe investor out there, which this forum likes to refer to as the suckers, seems to have missed this one so far. Most all the inflows have been into bond funds. Also, yet again today, the Merrill Lynch High Yield Master II Index ( the proxy for junk bonds) made another all time historic high.


http://www.menafn.co.....AFAFA5ED28D7}

The article I posted above is dated Dec.3... here's the link.. http://www.marketwat...sell-2009-12-03