• 310 days Will The ECB Continue To Hike Rates?
  • 310 days Forbes: Aramco Remains Largest Company In The Middle East
  • 312 days Caltech Scientists Succesfully Beam Back Solar Power From Space
  • 712 days Could Crypto Overtake Traditional Investment?
  • 716 days Americans Still Quitting Jobs At Record Pace
  • 718 days FinTech Startups Tapping VC Money for ‘Immigrant Banking’
  • 721 days Is The Dollar Too Strong?
  • 722 days Big Tech Disappoints Investors on Earnings Calls
  • 723 days Fear And Celebration On Twitter as Musk Takes The Reins
  • 724 days China Is Quietly Trying To Distance Itself From Russia
  • 725 days Tech and Internet Giants’ Earnings In Focus After Netflix’s Stinker
  • 728 days Crypto Investors Won Big In 2021
  • 729 days The ‘Metaverse’ Economy Could be Worth $13 Trillion By 2030
  • 730 days Food Prices Are Skyrocketing As Putin’s War Persists
  • 732 days Pentagon Resignations Illustrate Our ‘Commercial’ Defense Dilemma
  • 732 days US Banks Shrug off Nearly $15 Billion In Russian Write-Offs
  • 735 days Cannabis Stocks in Holding Pattern Despite Positive Momentum
  • 736 days Is Musk A Bastion Of Free Speech Or Will His Absolutist Stance Backfire?
  • 736 days Two ETFs That Could Hedge Against Extreme Market Volatility
  • 738 days Are NFTs About To Take Over Gaming?
The Problem With Modern Monetary Theory

The Problem With Modern Monetary Theory

Modern monetary theory has been…

Market Sentiment At Its Lowest In 10 Months

Market Sentiment At Its Lowest In 10 Months

Stocks sold off last week…

Another Retail Giant Bites The Dust

Another Retail Giant Bites The Dust

Forever 21 filed for Chapter…

  1. Home
  2. Markets
  3. Other

Investor Sentiment: Sentiment Leads Price

Current market sentiment remains neutral to bullish. The "dumb money" indicator is neutral while the Rydex market timers remain overly bullish (and this is bearish). Corporate insiders are showing no real inclination to "buy the dip". I am still of the belief that better buying opportunities are ahead and will be at lower prices; this is an opinion I have shared in these comments for months now. I would expect the great unwind that started last week to end up in a situation where we have too many bears. This will be our bull signal. What is not often appreciated about investor sentiment is that it generally leads price. After all, investor sentiment is just a reflection of investors' opinions about the market, and it is investors who make the market. From this perspective, investors have been leaving the market, and they have been right to be bearish. At some point, this will be the consensus opinion, but for now, we are still a ways a way from that eventuality.

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

Figure 1. "Dumb Money"/ weekly
Dumb Money Weekly

Figure 2 is a weekly chart of the SP500 with the InsiderScore "entire market" value in the lower panel. From the InsiderScore weekly report: "The shortened week seemed to have little impact on insiders as market-wide sentiment was virtually unchanged despite a -14% drop in the number of buyers and a 4% increase in the number of sellers."

Figure 2. InsiderScore "Entire Market" value/ weekly
Insider Score Entire Market Value Weekly

Figure 3 is a weekly chart of the SP500. The indicator in the lower panel measures all the assets in the Rydex bullish oriented equity funds divided by the sum of assets in the bullish oriented equity funds plus the assets in the bearish oriented equity funds. When the indicatoris green, the value is low and there is fear in the market; this is where market bottoms are forged. When the indicator is red, there is complacency in the market. There are too many bulls and this is when market advances stall.

Currently, the value of the indicator is 68.66%. Values less than 50% are associated with market bottoms. Values greater than 58% are associated with market tops.

Figure 3. Rydex Total Bull v. Total Bear/ weekly
Rydex Total Bull v. Total Bear - Weekly

 

Back to homepage

Leave a comment

Leave a comment