Maybe sentiment indicators are as wrong, or at least stayed wrong, as they did during the selloff? The first important indicator I follow for sentiment, the Investors Intelligence Bull/Bear ratio, shows 49% bulls. That's way too high. The logic: Everyone's in the pool. There are no buyers left. The second sentiment indicator I follow is the S&P 500's oscillator, which updates, like Helene Meisler's, every night.
We are higher than +6 on the oscillator, and I don't like to buy a market that's more than +5, because I have been scalded more times than not when I do (although it doesn't ever call the exact top).
Both sentiment indicators together are at dangerous levels that should produce selling.
But during the selloff we reached extremes in the number of bears and in oversold oscillator numbers, and they just stayed at levels that have produced phenomenal rallies for a very long time. The oscillator was off the charts with double-digit negatives. There were the fewest bulls I can ever recall.
And it stayed that way and stayed that way and stayed that way.
What would happen is you would have these little gains up and then be pancaked again. You would have spurts, rallies and then lose more bulls and get more oversold soon after. If you used the traditional levels I have been taught to use, you got clobbered.
I am wondering if the exact opposite is happening now. We get overbought, we stay overbought. We get a lot of bulls, we keep a lot of bulls.
It's not something I like to bet on, which is why I expected more of a selloff than the 1.5% that we got earlier this week. But, again, that's par for the kind of gains we got in the bear market that ended in March.
Just something to worry about if you are getting too bearish and looking for too big a selloff. The indicators failed last time. Maybe history's repeating itself.
Random musings: Stories are again circulating that Vikram Pandit of Citigroup (NYSE: C) (Cramer's Take) is in trouble according to some sort of internal management review. I totally dispute these stories and think he is in the best shape since he took over the reins.
Jim Cramer is co-founder and chairman of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in the stocks mentioned.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-13-2009 @ 11:08PM
Ynot said...
They need to change the names from Wall Street to Bubble Street, from Federal Reserve to Federal Pump and Dump, from U.S. Treasury to the U.S. Beggars Department. What we have going on is unsustainable and it is only a matter of time before this blows up in our face. False security is a dangerous game to be playing with a national economy and they, the Federal Pump and Dump and the U.S. Beggars Department, better figure out a way to reign in all that so called cash they created to pump up yet another bubble before it's too late. But hey, since Bernankes' main concern is it doesn't happen under his watch, I wouldn't hold my breath.