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Sentiment

Jul 08 2023

Neutral (But Leaning Negative)

  • Jul 8, 2023

U.S. stocks have either begun one of the most underwhelming and economically illogical bull markets in history, or have staged an exceptionally long and deceptive bear market rally. Our bet is on the latter.

May 05 2023

Irrational Optimism?

  • May 5, 2023

During bear markets, speculative psychology can remain depressed long enough to have a self-fulfilling impact on the economy. In today’s experience, we expect investors’ economic fears will be “fulfilled” in coming months. In the short term, however, at least one measure of optimism has sprinted out ahead of the stock market itself.

Aug 12 2022

Are You Better Off Than You Were Forty Years Ago?

  • Aug 12, 2022

Old timers will recognize our title as a twist on Ronald Reagan’s clincher in the final 1980 presidential debate with Jimmy Carter.

We recalled Reagan’s line while preparing for today’s 40th anniversary of the great 1982 secular stock-market low. Investors in the S&P 500 have earned an annualized total return of +12.4% since that trough, about two percentage points above the long-term average.

Aug 05 2022

Confidence Cracking?

  • Aug 5, 2022

The theory of “contrary opinion” is important to market analysis, but so is an understanding of its limitations. When investor-sentiment surveys dipped sharply in late January, we warned that the declines (which are usually signals to “buy”) might instead mark the beginning of an important trend change. 

Jul 08 2022

Sentimental Musings

  • Jul 8, 2022

Most sentiment measures show none of the frothiness that lingered in the months after the Y2K Tech bust. Rather, some exhibit actions reminiscent of early 2008.

Jul 08 2022

Watching The “Smart Money”

  • Jul 8, 2022

Of the prevailing bullish arguments, the one that strikes us as the weakest is that there’s “too much pessimism.” Much like in 2000, some pundits disingenuously made that claim before the market rolled over. But at this point, with the market now down big and economic numbers suddenly wobbly, the last thing any bull should want is too much pessimism.

Mar 05 2022

Sentiment: Why The Long Faces?

  • Mar 5, 2022

Those who want validation to buy aggressively with the market down 10% can reference two historically reliable, intermediate-term sentiment measures with fresh BUY signals—and there’s a third one that’s also very close to triggering a BUY. The problem is that boundaries defining extreme psychology change over time—with a key inflection occurring as the market transitions from bull to bear.

May 07 2021

How Much Leverage Is Too Much?

  • May 7, 2021

FINRA’s latest report shows a 72% annual gain in margin debt. Yet, in relation to the gain in stock prices, growth in Margin Debt is still well below the peaks of early 2000 and mid-2007—suggesting investors could take on considerably more leverage in the months ahead.

May 07 2021

Stock Market Observations

  • May 7, 2021

The speculative peak for this market rally may have occurred in either January (when GameStop and other “left for dead” short candidates soared), or February (when indexes tracking the “newborns”—IPOs and SPACs—both peaked). But even if we knew that for certain, a major peak in stock prices could still be months away.

Apr 23 2021

Earnings Are Back In Focus

  • Apr 23, 2021

Earnings releases (ER) are normally accompanied by large stock-price movements, either to the upside or downside.

Here, we computed the percentage of companies that registered a large move in their stock price on their ER day in the trailing three-month window (500 basis points up OR down). In order to normalize for non ER-day volatility, we computed the percentage of all companies that registered a significant price move on any day during the same period. The difference between the two is shown in Chart 1.

 

Apr 01 2021

Our Most Contrarian Industry Group Ideas

  • Apr 1, 2021

Contrarian investing is difficult from both an emotional and implementation standpoint. Often the consensus is right, and industry groups are out-of-favor for a reason. As the saying goes, “Don’t be contrarian just for the sake of being a contrarian.”

Mar 19 2021

A Flight Of Wee Dragons

  • Mar 19, 2021

In our mid-month Of Special Interest, “Valuation Extremes: Here Be Dragons,” we examined valuation outliers as a measure of market sentiment. The hypothesis was that exuberance is reflected in investors’ willingness to hold stocks priced on an aggressive “vision” of the future; companies that are either habitually unprofitable or trade at a Price/Sales ratio above 15x.

Feb 05 2021

Climbing The Wall Of Confidence?

  • Feb 5, 2021

Stock market valuations may be considered the ultimate in fundamental measures, but they can just as easily be considered long-wave sentiment indicators. What causes equity investors to pay as little as 10x for S&P 500 Normalized Earnings at one point (March 2009), but pay more than 30x a dozen years later? The Fed printing press was in overdrive at both points; only emotions can account for the difference.

Feb 05 2021

Silly Season

  • Feb 5, 2021

Move over, Y2K! In late January, the squeeze of popular hedge fund “shorts” eclipsed anything we saw at the peak of the Technology bubble. But who knows? An even wilder event might be in store in coming months.

Jan 08 2021

Passive’s “Placid Pandemic Performance”

  • Jan 8, 2021

The 200-day “report card” for this bull market shows the best initial-performance gain of all postwar bulls, but it’s come at a price. Investor sentiment is above levels seen at the same point of past bull markets… and there are the valuations. 

Dec 05 2020

Wall Of Worry?!?

  • Dec 5, 2020

Many pundits argue that sky-high valuations on stay-at-home stocks “prove” equity investors somehow remain fearful. It’s a nuanced, short-term argument, and there’s merit to it: We’d argue such fears have produced terrific relative values among “SMID” Cap stocks. 

Aug 06 2020

Sentimental Musings

  • Aug 6, 2020

We get irked when TV pundits misrepresent the mood of equity investors as unduly pessimistic based one or two (or zero) data points. Among the dozens of “Attitudinal” indicators we track, an overwhelming majority show professional and retail investors have jumped back into the fray.

Jun 05 2020

Sentimental Musings

  • Jun 5, 2020

Long-term sentiment indicators have carved out a four-month pattern similar to what we’ve observed in Large Cap valuation measures. That’s no surprise; valuation is a sentiment measure.

Apr 03 2020

Sentiment Has Been Crushed, But Might Need To Just Languish For A While

  • Apr 3, 2020

We didn’t see the coronavirus coming and, like millions or perhaps billions of others, underestimated its likely economic impact when it began to spread. But stock market risks were high well before the virus hit.

Aug 16 2019

Here’s One Reason Sentiment Is So Subdued...

  • Aug 16, 2019

Market bulls remain mystified by the lack of enthusiasm for stocks given the proximity of U.S. indexes to all-time highs. They view this relative indifference as a contrarian positive—the “wall of worry” argument.

 

Aug 07 2019

Odds & Ends

  • Aug 7, 2019

Here are some brief follow-up notes on topics covered in recent months’ Green Books.

Aug 07 2019

Are You Really A Contrarian?

  • Aug 7, 2019

The need to sound contrarian has become a borderline obsession among market pundits. Media opportunities for talking heads have exploded in the last decade, forcing those who hold the safest consensus views to falsely portray themselves as lonely and misunderstood market mavericks.

Aug 05 2019

Leuthold Quick Takes: Getting Sentimental

  • Aug 5, 2019

This issue of Leuthold Quick Takes reviews the conflicted nature of investor sentiment as seen by Doug Ramsey (Chief Investment Officer) and Jim Paulsen (Chief Investment Strategist).

Jul 05 2019

Building The Wall?

  • Jul 5, 2019

One of the more impressive feats that bullish pundits have pulled off is their successful portrayal of themselves as lonely and misunderstand contrarians even as the eleventh year of a cyclical bull market grinds on.

Apr 05 2019

1999 Redux

  • Apr 5, 2019

As the market rebound has extended, we’ve noted its striking similarities with the rally of 1999—one that might have been the most speculative in U.S. history.

Jan 08 2019

You Call That A Panic?

  • Jan 8, 2019

Christmas Eve came not with snowfall but a market freefall which was the worst-ever recorded for that date.

Dec 21 2018

Market Observations

  • Dec 21, 2018

It’s been one of the worst years on record for diversification, with our hypothetical All Asset No Authority (AANA) portfolio down 7.2% YTD through yesterday. That’s the second-worst year for AANA since 1972, and there’s probably not enough time left for performance to undercut 2008 (-24.9%) for the bottom spot.

 

Oct 05 2018

Time To Get Contrary With Commodities?

  • Oct 5, 2018

After a strong 2016 and a “Bridesmaid” (i.e., sector runner-up) performance in 2017, the Materials sector seemed primed to benefit from the “late cycle” character of the economy in 2018.

Oct 05 2018

Investor Temperament And The “Tape”

  • Oct 5, 2018

In the first week of October, the share of newsletter bulls topped 61% just as the NYSE percentage slid to 41%. Maybe it’s a seasonal thing… the last time that happened was October 2007.

Apr 06 2018

A Troublesome Commodity Pattern...

  • Apr 6, 2018

During each of the last five months, the U.S. economy has shown a broadening array of “late-cycle” characteristics.

Apr 06 2018

“What, Me Worry?”

  • Apr 6, 2018

Our shortest-term put/call measure has yet to reflect the level of fear usually triggered by a correction of this size. Meanwhile, the market setback has done almost nothing to stymy the optimism of either market newsletter writers or mutual fund timers.

Jan 06 2018

A Long-Term Take On Sentiment

  • Jan 6, 2018

We impatiently published this study two months ago instead of properly waiting for full-year numbers.

Jan 05 2018

A Long-Term Take On Sentiment

  • Jan 5, 2018

Tax cuts, a strong economy, and daily stock market records have lifted measures of investor sentiment to levels not seen in two decades. But sentiment is only a slightly better timing tool than valuations (which is not saying much), and there’s plenty of room for excitement to build before a final top is at hand.

Dec 07 2017

Not A Tipping Point, But A “Toggle” Point?

  • Dec 7, 2017

Evidently, being a bull in a bull market is no longer good enough.

Nov 07 2017

A Longer-Term Take On Sentiment

  • Nov 7, 2017

Stock market bears had a field day when the latest Investors Intelligence sentiment survey (Chart 1) saw the percentage of bullish newsletter writers spike to its “highest level since 1987.”

Oct 06 2017

Thoughts On Sentiment

  • Oct 6, 2017

The MTI’s Attitudinal category has held stable over the last several months, an impressive (and contrarily bullish) feat considering the steady onslaught of new bull market highs.

Mar 07 2017

A “Good Year” To Start The Year

  • Mar 7, 2017

The S&P 500 was up 6.4% YTD through March 3rd, a bit above its average annualized gain of 5.9% since 1926. In other words, 2017 would be a good year if the books were closed today.

Dec 07 2016

Stock Market Observations

  • Dec 7, 2016

We revisit our “Red Flag Indicator” of prior bull market tops versus today. Usually most of these internal market measures will deteriorate in advance of the final bull market peak. At the latest S&P high, three of the seven leading measures had raised Red Flags, by not confirming, but two of them (DJ Transports and the NYSE A/D Line), are within just ticks of new bull market highs.

Jul 08 2016

Bond Bubble Spills Into Equities

  • Jul 8, 2016

The S&P 500 once again remains on the verge of a new bull market high, thanks in large part to the bubble in another asset class: Bonds.

May 06 2016

EM: Improved Sentiment But Macro Risks Still Dominate

  • May 6, 2016

Positive forces may be transient. Be wary of EM’s high correlation to commodities and Chinese stocks.