Trader’s Narrative

Here is a quick wrap up of the sentiment developments for the past week:
AAII
The retail investor’s sentiment flipped after two weeks to one where bears (45.45%) now outnumber the bulls (30.68%). The bearish sentiment, while high, isn’t at extremes. So a mildly bullish case can be made through contrarian analysis.
Investor’s Intelligence
The bulls and bears continued […]

AAII
The retail investors as measured by the American Association of Individual Investor’s weekly sentiment survey are astonishingly pessimistic: 54% bearish.
To find a more gloomy view from the retail investor’s camp we’d have to go back to mid January when the AAII sentiment reached 59% bearish.
Back then I showed you this chart:

We have definitely seen 13 […]

Sentiment Surveys
No significant change within the usual sentiment surveys. Both the AAII and II moved just 1% points: the AII going to 47% bulls from 46% and the Investor’s Intelligence bullish percent from 45% to 46%.
Hulbert Newsletter Sentiment
According to Mark Hulbert, out of 10 market timing newsletters with the best risk adjusted performance, seven are […]

When a widely popular site like icanhascheeseburger.com puts this up, it’s safe to say that not only has the concept reached everyone, but that “recession” has seeped into the very depths of our collective psyches:

Source: icanhascheesburger.com
Of course, as a contrarian indicator, the fact that we are in a recession may in fact be a condition […]

I took a few days off (hope you didn’t miss me too much). Let’s catch up by looking at the important sentiment developments:
ISE Sentiment
I mentioned the ISEE during last week’s sentiment overview when it increased slightly as the market fell, showing that retail option traders were seemingly not worried. Even more bizarre, during the past […]