Trader’s Narrative

Let me savor this moment… ahhh!

It isn’t everyday when a lowly blogger gets one above Birinyi Associates - a professional research outfit that serves up spoonfuls of research to institutional clients on Wall Street.

On June 16th, TickerSense reported that the AAII sentiment survey result was showing bearishness above 50% (at appx. a 55% reading).

Their conclusion was that this has been usually bullish (as a contrarian signal) but beware! they pointed out: “Bearish sentiment was also above 50% in March 2000.”

Being the detail freak that I am, I decided to actually check into this. As you can see, the AAII sentiment survey for March 30th 2000 showed 50% bears. It was not “above 50% in March 2000″ at any time.

Apart from this little nitpick, the absolute number of bears is not as important as the ratio of bulls to bears. At the end of March 2000 when bearish sentiment was at (not over) 50%, the bulls were 38.9%. This is quite different from the AAII reading we have now where the bulls are at 26% and the bears are at 55%.

Laszlo, if you’re reading this, you may use the contact page to reach me to offer me a fact-checking position at Birinyi Assoc. My fee is a reasonable $500/hour