Permabulls always say everyone’s bearish. And permabears always say everyone’s bullish. Neither side ever provides evidence for their views. So I regularly run through a wide variety of sentiment measures to get an accurate reflection of the market’s mood. According to 6 sentiment measures I track, traders appear to be shockingly… neutral. Seriously, when I mash all the data together, I get a crowd that looks split right down the middle between bulls and bears. 1) SPX Options Prices – Bearish SPX options prices show a high put skew. I looked at 10% out of the money 6 month SPX options. There is currently a 9.6 point skew in implied volatilities on the options. That’s the 88th percentile. So relative to calls, traders are paying more for 10% OTM 6 month puts than they have 88% of the time over the past 5 years. 2) AAII Sentiment – Bearish The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that 28.8% of individual investors are bullish, well below the long-term average of 38.5%, and below the 2016 YTD average of 28.1%. Bearish sentiment is at 27.9%,down huge from last week, and slightly lower than the 30.3% long-term average. 3) Wall Street Strategists – Neutral The average year-end target price for the S&P 500 is 2171, according to Bloomberg. That implies a 1% gain into year-end. 4) ISE Sentiment – Neutral The ISE Sentiment Index closed at 130 yesterday (130 calls for every 100 puts). This is a bullish reading And its 10 day moving average is just 94 — a level that typically indicates modest bearishness. So we’ll call it neutral. 5) CBOE Equity Put-Call – Bullish The CBOE Equity-Put Call ratio was 0.66 yesterday, which is just below the YTD average of 0.58. This points to slightly bullish sentiment. 6) Investors Intelligence – Bullish Yesterday, the Investors Intelligence Survey of newsletter writers showed a slight increase in bullishness to 46.7%. This is high relative to long-term averages. Bears fell to a 3-week low to 22.8%. ********* So we have 2 bearish indicators, 2 neutral indicators, and 2 bullish indicators. Blend them together and you have a crowd that looks pretty darn neutral. I’m hearing a lot of bears say that everyone’s complacent… but who are they talking about?
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Want to Earn Serious Income With Options? Then click here to check out Doug Robertson’s special live trading event! Permabulls always say everyone’s bearish. And permabears always say everyone’s bullish. Neither side provides evidence for their views. So I like regularly run through a wide variety of sentiment measures to get an accurate reflection of the market’s mood. According to 7 sentiment measures I track, traders appear to be modestly bearish, even though the S&P 500 is still within a stone’s throw of the 2193 all-time high. 1) SPX Options Prices – Bearish SPX options prices show a high put skew. I looked at 10% out of the money 6 month SPX options. There is currently a 9.8 point skew in implied volatilities on the options. That’s the 94th percentile. So relative to calls, traders are paying more for 10% OTM 6 month puts than they have 94% of the time over the past 5 years. 2) ISE Sentiment – Bearish The ISE Sentiment Index closed at 81 yesterday (81 puts for every 100 calls). And its 10 day moving average is just 78 — a level that indicates bearishness. 3) AAII Sentiment – Bearish The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that 24.0% of individual investors are bullish, well below the long-term average of 38.4%, and below the 2016 YTD average of 28.1%. Bearish sentiment is at 37.1%, down a bit from last week, but well above the 30.3% long-term average. 4) Wall Street Strategists – Neutral The average year-end target price for the S&P 500 is 2169, according to Bloomberg. That implies the market does nothing into year-end. 5) CBOE Equity Put-Call – Neutral The CBOE Equity-Put Call ratio was 0.66 yesterday, which is just below the YTD average of 0.69. This points to neutral sentiment. 6) CNN Fear & Greed Index – Neutral The Fear & Greed Index is at 50. F&G operates on a 1-100 scale, and 50 is neutral perfectly neutral. 7) Investors Intelligence – Bullish Yesterday, the Investors Intelligence Survey of newsletter writers showed a slightly increase in bullishness to 45.2%, snapping a 4-week losing streak.Those calling for correction are at 31.7%, the highest since June 29. ********* So we have 3 bearish indicators, 3 neutral indicators, and 1 bullish indicator. Blend them together and you have a moderately bearish crowd. I’m hearing a lot of bears say that everyone’s complacent… but who are they talking about? P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for Doug Robertson’s FREE options event!
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