Comments on: Sentiment Overview: Week Of September 21st 2007

by: Mark Young

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:21:01 +0000

Babak, the poll changes every DAY! That’s what’s so valuable about it. We also run a weekly, but the daily is great. It’s pinned at the top of this board:

http://www.traders-talk.com/mb2/index.php?showforum=2

and there’s an archive of every poll since we started right there, just above.

I have to tell you, I find it very valuable, personally.

Mark

by: Babak

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 01:12:02 +0000

ah, ok - that explains it. Do you have a link to the poll or does it change every week? I’d also love to muck about in the historic data for this indicator.

by: Mark Young

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:50:41 +0000

Babak,

The chart shows a 5-day SMA of the ratio of Fully Long vs. Fully Short respondents to our daily poll. I’ve found that only confidence is worth tracking as an indicator, per se. Other aspects of the sentiment can have meaning and utility, but it’s more subtle.

I’m pretty good at winnowing out all kinds of subtlety from sentiment measures. In fact, I’m the guy who runs the Wall St. Sentiment Survey for Decision Point, and I used to be able to make a pretty accurate call for the week based just upon that survey alone. Things have changed, however, and I need a pretty broad arsenal.

Best,
Mark Young

by: Babak

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:34:57 +0000

Mark, re the graph, what is it showing when it says bull/bear ratio?
Thanks for the invite

by: Mark Young

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:12:44 +0000

There has been a big shift in sentiment toward the bullish side recently. Tickersense has a ton of Bulls and Hulbert has his guys about 31% long which is a big shift.

That said, the message board polls on traders-talk are persistently showing a lot of Bears. Short-term, that doesn’t matter. Longer term? Pretty important.

Here’s the latest chart:

http://www.traders-talk.com/mb2/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=5990

Full Disclosure: I run traders-talk. If you contribute, feel free to link back to your blog. We’d be happy to have you.

Mark Young

by: Babak

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 21:33:35 +0000

I wish I had the time to read Das’ book. It sounds like a rare expose on the financial engineering that goes on.

by: Shepard

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 23:25:45 +0000

I read that story also Stephen … The great aspect of that article is that the entire credit “trade” was broken down in easy to digest terms. Very informative, but very scary if Satyajit Das is correct. We shall see…

by: Stephen

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 14:41:12 +0000

This expert seems to disagree