Money managers think stocks are undervalued: Who cares?

Here's an interesting but completely useless data point: A survey of 254 money managers conducted by Russell Investments found that 42% of them believe that U.S. stocks are undervalued, up from 34% three months ago. Two-thirds are expecting stocks to provide a positive return this year, although that number is down from three months ago, probably due to the market's rough opening to the year.

What does it all mean? Beats the hell out of me. If anything, this survey could be viewed as a contrarian indicator. The 42% who believe that stocks are undervalued have, presumably, already bought close to the amount of stock that they can -- their money won't be flowing in to give the market a boost. All that those bullish money managers can do now is hold or sell.

The Wall Street Journal quotes (subscription required) Erik Ristuben, managing director, client investment strategies at Russell Investments, as saying, "clearly don't believe that the likely scenario is going to be as bad as what's already priced into stocks."

But the problem is that what the majority of money managers believe is already priced into stocks! If they're feeling bullish and buy, the market goes up.

So this survey, like nearly every market predictor, should probably be discarded as useless. I certainly wouldn't go buy stocks because 42% of money managers think they're undervalued.