Trader’s Narrative

I know this is a bit late but lets cover last week’s sentiment landscape:
Hulbert Stock Newsletter Sentiment
According to Mark Hulbert, there is a stark contrast in the land of newsletters. The newsletters with the best track record in timing the stock market are bullish with an average 83% equity exposure. Contrast that with newsletters […]

Interesting article on Goldman Sachs’ “luck” in escaping unscathed from the sub-prime mortgage mess:
Goldman’s good fortune cannot be explained by luck alone. Late last year, as the markets roared along, David A. Viniar, Goldman’s chief financial officer, called a “mortgage risk” meeting in his meticulous 30th-floor office in Lower Manhattan.
At that point, the holdings of […]

According to Peter Brimlow from Marketwatch, the last bullish newsletter has abandoned China. The newsletter, Cabot China & Emerging Markets Report, has been the biggest bull riding the bull market in the far east to a stunning 90%+ gain in the past 12 months.
Editor Paul Goodwin recently wrote:
We’re a little self-conscious about calling ourselves […]

I’ve been “contrarian” bullish on US dollars ever since it cracked its long term support. It seemed to me that everyone and their uncle was short the dollar and although for good reason, it seemed like too easy a trade.
But sometimes you can over-think these things. And it looks like this was one of them: […]

China’s stock market ignored all that talk in the summer about a bubble and continued to climb higher. Even a stamp tax increase imposed at the beginning of June this year didn’t impede its meteoric rise:

Usually the increase in transaction costs have been an effective way for the Chinese government to control rampant speculation in […]