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July 26, 2009

Investor Sentiment: Investors Not Buying It
by Guy Lerner

Investor sentiment remains little changed after a two week "melt up".

The "Dumb Money" indicator is shown in figure 1. The "Dumb Money" indicator looks for extremes in the data from 4 different groups of investors who historically have been wrong on the market: 1) Investor Intelligence; 2) Market Vane; 3) American Association of Individual Investors; and 4) the put call ratio.

Figure 1. "Dumb Money" Indicator/ weekly

As investors are not buying into the rally, one might conclude that the rally will march onward and upward until they do, and then it will rollover. That seems likely. However, it is hard to imagine that prices will continue making gains at the pace seen over the past two weeks. I still stand by the sell signal and expected spike in prices that I wrote about two weeks ago. The recent "breakout" in prices will eventually be seen as a better time to sell rather then a new launching pad for a bull market. That's how I see it for now.

The "Smart Money" indicator is shown in figure 2. The "smart money" indicator is a composite of the following data: 1) public to specialist short ratio; 2) specialist short to total short ratio; 3) SP100 option traders. The "smart money" is neutral.

Figure 2. "Smart Money" Indicator

Guy M. Lerner
http://thetechnicaltakedotcom.blogspot.com/

Disclaimer: Guy M. Lerner is the editor and founder of The Technical Take blog. His commentary on the financial markets is based upon information thought to be reliable and is not meant as investment advice. Under no circumstances does the information in his columns represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Lerner may on occasion hold positions in the securities mentioned in his columns and on the Web site; in all instances, all positions are fully disclosed at http://thetechnicaltakedotcom.blogspot.com/. However, their positions may change at anytime. For more information on any of the above, please review The Technical Take's full Terms of Use and Privacy Policy (link below). While Lerner cannot provide investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to send your comments to: guy@thetechnicaltake.com.

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