All posts by Michael Comeau
T3’s Market Wrap: How Do You Like Dem Apples?
Traders had two questions heading into Apple’s (AAPL) Q4 earnings report yesterday after the close: 1) Can the company produce enough iPhone X units? 2) Can the company sell enough iPhone 8 units? Apple answered both questions with an emphatic yes, proving once again that the Apple supply chain rumor mill can’t be trusted. The media does a great job of sniffing out Apple product announcements, but they’re awful at figuring out just how much product the company is selling. We’ve been hearing a lot of rumors about weak iPhone demand, and we know now that they had zero basis in reality… not that the bears would admit that. Apple reported EPS of $2.07, smashing the $1.87 consensus. Revenue was $52.6 billion, easily beating Wall Street’s $50.7 billion forecast. iPhone units were also above expectations, as was Q1 revenue guidance. Apple shares hit an all-time high at $174.26 this morning before some minor profit-taking hit. We still have to see what happens with Nvidia’s (NVDA) earnings report on Thursday, but make no mistake: tech earnings season has been nothing short of fantastic. The October nonfarm payrolls report was released on Friday, revealing that the economy added 261,000 jobs in October, missing the 310,000 Wall Street consensus. The unemployment rate was 4.1%, besting the 4.2% expected. However, the big story was Average Hourly earnings, which were unchanged. Economists expected growth of 0.2%. The numbers point to a strong labor market that isn’t generating much wage inflation. Workers are in demand, but pay just isn’t going up. The lack of wage growth means the Fed could continue to undershoot its inflation goals. The US dollar and Treasury yields fell after the numbers hit, but reversed afterwards. Gold shot up but dipped back into the red. This morning, T3 Live Chief Strategic Officer Scott Redler said that “yesterday, SPX broke below 2567 momentarily, and we now have the 2566 low as our new point of reference. As long as that holds, not much changes. We didn’t come close to that 2566 low, implying that the bull move remains fully intact. The relentless bid that keeps stock pumped in the face of a chaotic news flow is proving endlessly frustrating to the bears. Every time there’s a sign of trouble — like the recent weakness in the Russell 2000 — it quickly gets reversed and we see new headlines celebrating all-time highs. Now it seems like the only element left is time. The market’s been zooming higher and higher ever since the Presidential election. The longer time goes on, the greater probability of an unexpected shock. But betting against the likelihood of a shock has been the best trade in the market. The VIX can barely stay above 10, there’s almost no intraday movement, let alone run-of-the-mill 5% to 10% drawdowns that used to be fairly common place. So unless we get some actual technical deterioration in the charts, the only thing the bears can hope for is a shock that comes out of nowhere and destroys faith in the system. Sooner or later, something bad will happen. It always does. But good luck predicting when…
Continue Reading -->The News Is Flowing. Are Traders Happy?
We’ve got a lot of news flowing. Apple (AAPL) hit new all-time highs after delivering an incredible fourth-quarter earnings report. President Trump announced the nomination of Jerome Powell as Fed Chairman. The October nonfarm payrolls report disappointing. On a random note… has anyone heard from North Korea lately? Anyway, with stocks still hovering around all-time highs, let’s take a look at our sentiment indicators to figure out what kind of mood the crowd is in. (click here for a primer on the sentiment indicators below) 1) VIX Spread – Bullish Last week, the VIX broke its shocking streak of 25 days in a row with an intraday low under 10, and it even went over 13. But as of Friday morning, it’s back down to sub-10 levels around 9.73. This gives us a 3-month spread of about +4.20, which means traders are very bullish. (click here for a primer on the VIX spread) 2) CNN Fear & Greed Index – Bullish The Fear & Greed Index is at 69, which marks modest greediness on the part of investors. It hit multi-year highs at 95 4 weeks ago. 3) AAII Sentiment – Bullish The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that 45.1 of individual investors are bullish, up substantially from 39.6% last week. This is above the long-term average of 38.5%, so it shows bullishness. In fact, it’s the highest reading since January 5, 2017. AAII sentiment has been depressed throughout 2017 despite the market hitting a nonstop streak of all-time highs. This seems like a big change. 4) CBOE Equity Put-Call – Bullish The CBOE Equity-Put Call ratio was at 0.63 on Thursday, below the 0.655 long-term average. The 10-day moving average is 0.635, which is slightly above the long-term average, indicating higher-than-normal demand for put options. I would call this very slightly bullish. So it looks like options traders were pretty optimistic heading into Apple’s Thursday afternoon earnings report and Friday’s nonfarm payrolls numbers. Conclusion Out of 4 sentiment indicators, we have: 4 bullish (up from 2 last week) 0 neutral (down from 1 last week) 0 bearish (down from 1 last week) Make no mistake, the crowd is clearly more bullish than last week. I’d guess that’s for two reasons: 1) Tech earnings season has been remarkably strong 2) The market just won’t go down Now, that may have the bears thinking we’re in danger of overheating. But keep in mind, no individual sentiment indicator is flashing extreme, full-on nutty bullishness. The crowd is positive, but it’s not irrational. If we continue to make new highs, I wonder if that AAII sentiment number will spiral even higher as individual investors turn into true believers. You may be asking yourself “how can the market get to all-time highs without a large crowd of true believers?” My answer is simple: I think an awful lot of buyers hold their noses while putting their money to work. They put money to work, but don’t necessarily feel great doing so. In fact, I keep coming back to a Gallup Poll from earlier in the year. It found that just 54% of US adults have participated in the 2009 – 2017 bull market. From 2001 – 2008, 62% of adults owned stocks. So we have to balance out bullish sentiment with the fact that many people just got up and left the table altogether. Good luck reconciling those two points…
Continue Reading -->Is the Bull Train Full? Nope!
On Friday, the Nasdaq made new all-time highs on strong earnings from megacap tech giants Amazon.com (AMZN), Intel (INTC), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Microsoft (MSFT). This spike came on the heels of what looked like the beginnings of a downtrend. On Wednesday, October 25, the SPX index made a lower low and we saw the biggest intraday range since early September. So let’s take a fresh look at our sentiment indicators to see how the crowd is feeling ahead of the weekend. (click here for a primer on the sentiment indicators below) 1) VIX Spread – Bullish On Tuesday, October 24, the VIX broke its shocking streak of 25 days in a row with an intraday low under 10, and went over 13 on Wednesday for the first time since September 5. As of Friday morning, the VIX is hovering around 10.20 This gives us a 3-month spread of about +4.00, which means traders are very bullish. (click here for a primer on the VIX spread) 2) CNN Fear & Greed Index – Bullish The Fear & Greed Index is at 70, which marks modest greedness on thepart of investors. It hit multi-year highs at 95 just 3 weeks ago. 3) AAII Sentiment – Neutral The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that 39.6% of individual investors are bullish, up slightly from 37.9% last week. This is in-line with the long-term average of 38.5%, so it’s basically neutral. 4) CBOE Equity Put-Call – Bearish The CBOE Equity-Put Call ratio was at 0.61 on Thursday, below the 0.655 long-term average as traders aggressively bought call options ahead of a big night of earnings. Those buyers certainly woke up happy on Friday! The 10-day moving average is 0.664, which is slightly above the long-term average, indicating higher-than-normal demand for put options. I would call this very slightly bearish. Conclusion Out of 4 sentiment indicators, we have: 2 bullish (flat from last week) 1 neutral (flat) 1 bearish (flat) Overall, sentiment is basically relative to last week. The mood is still moderately bullish as traders think about what’s next. Just a few weeks ago, traders seemed downright insanely bullish, though they calmed down a bit even as the indices stretched to new highs. I think we’re in a decent spot. The mood is positive, but there’s still room for folks to hop on the bull train. In particular, options traders seem like they have room to get more bullish. Thursday saw heavy demand for call options, particularly in tech names like AMZN and MSFT. But the CBOE equity put-call indicates that overall, traders have been favoring put options, possibly because they were afraid of another whoosh down from the lower low on October 25. Now the big question is whether the strength in tech will push the bulls back into bullish insanity. Earnings season as a whole hasn’t been all that great, so investors may allocate more money towards tech because that’s where the numbers have been best. The next big reports to watch are Apple (AAPL) on Thursday, November 2 and Nvidia (NVDA) on November 9. If they both beat big, maybe the bulls just keep on buying.
Continue Reading -->Are the Growling Bears About to Get Fed?
We’re closing out another week chock full of all-time highs in the major indices. On Thursday, we had a short-lived scare with futures sinking and the VIX jumping 20% in early trading. But once again, the dip buyers stepped in to stabilize things, and the SPX managed to finish in the green. That means the pain trade lives on… for now. So let’s take a look at our 4 sentiment indicators to see how traders are feeling following Thursday’s minor skirmish. (click here for a primer on the sentiment indicators below) 1) VIX Spread – Bullish Since October 6, 2014, when the CBOE changed the VIX calculation methodology, we’ve had a total of 64 days with a VIX low under 10. So these days have been occurrences… until now. With the VIX under 10 Friday, we’ve had 24 in a row! So we’re either looking at a new normal of incredibly low expectations for volatility, or the crowd has gone mad. Meanwhile, the 3-month spread is at +4.07, which means traders are very bullish. However, the VIX curve is so flat that it may be signaling extreme complacency. (click here for a primer on the VIX spread) 2) CNN Fear & Greed Index – Bullish The Fear & Greed Index is at 83, marking Extreme Greed. However, it’s down substantially from the multi-year high at 95 seen two weeks ago. Still, this reading is very bullish. we’re seeing a lot of bullishness here. 3) AAII Sentiment – Neutral The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that 37.9% of individual investors are bullish, down slightly from 39.8% last week. This is in-line with the long-term average of 38.5%, so it’s basically neutral. 4) CBOE Equity Put-Call – Bearish The CBOE Equity-Put Call ratio was at 0.70 on Thursday, which is above the long-term average of 0.655. This indicates some skittishness following Friday’s early drop. The 10-day moving average is 0.672, which is above the long-term average, indicating higher-than-normal demand for put options. This is the highest 10-day moving average since August 24, 40 trading days ago. I would call this very slightly bearish. Conclusion Out of 4 sentiment indicators, we have: 2 bullish (flat from last week) 1 neutral (down from 2) 1 bearish (up from 0) Two weeks ago, I declared “the bulls are clearly insane. They think they’re destined to ride into the sunset on a magic carpet made of cold hard cash.” With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we know they were right to be insane, since the market has set multiple record high since then. However, traders have grown a bit more skittish, and bears are starting to growl. Not a lot of them, but they’re on the move. The CBOE equity put-call shows that traders are starting to pick up more put options, so some people are bracing for potential volatility. I’m starting to suspect that’s the right move. The best trade in 2017 has been short volatility, but we may be closer to the end of that game than the start. We’re had 24 straight sub-10 prints in the VIX. Implied volatility has been overshooting to the downside, and I believe it will overshoot to the upside. But of course, the most important question in financial markets is not who, what?, where, or why. It’s WHEN. Even if you can predict the future with 100% certainty, you’ve got nothing if you can’t time the trade.
Continue Reading -->Sentiment Report: Bears Fight the Pain Trade
We’re closing out another week full of record highs as the market eats everything it sees and smiles. The SPX, Nasdaq Composite, Nasdaq 100, and Dow Jones Industrial Average made new all-time highs, which had the bears coming out of the woodwork to say traders are too complacent. Is that true? After all, sentiment has been super bullish as of late, and higher prices typically means But let’s take a look at our 4 sentiment indicators to see how traders are feeling. (click here for a primer on the sentiment indicators below) 1) VIX Spread – Bullish Since October 6, 2014, when the CBOE changed the VIX calculation methodology, we’ve had a total of 58 days with a VIX low under 10. 58 of them have happened since April. And with Friday’s 9.59 print, we’ve had 16 in the past 16 days. So we’re either looking at a new normal of incredibly low expectations for volatility, or the crowd has gone mad. Meanwhile, the 3-month spread is at +4.1, which means traders are very bullish. However, the spread be wider if the VIX curve wasn’t so flat, which itself is a sign of very low expectations of volatility. (click here for a primer on the VIX spread) 2) CNN Fear & Greed Index – Bullish The Fear & Greed Index is at 78, down substantially from last week’s multi-year high at 95. The F&G Index operates on a 1-100 scale, and a reading of 95 qualifies as extremely greedy. So again, we’re seeing extraordinary bullishness. 3) AAII Sentiment – Neutral The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that 39.8% of individual investors are bullish, up slightly from 35.6% last week. This is slightly above the long-term average of 38.5%, so it’s basically neutral. 4) CBOE Equity Put-Call – Neutral The CBOE Equity-Put Call ratio was at 0.70 on Thursday, which is above the long-term average of 0.655. This indicates some skittishness ahead of Friday’s CPI report, which turned out to be weaker than expected. The 10-day moving average is 0.641, which is slightly below the long-term average, indicating higher-than-normal demand for call options. I would call this basically neutral. Put demand has definitely been picking up since early December, when traders were going nuts for call options. Conclusion Out of 4 sentiment indicators, we have: 2 bullish (down from 2 last week) 2 neutral (up from 1) 0 bearish (down from 1) Last week, I declared “the bulls are clearly insane. They think they’re destined to ride into the sunset on a magic carpet made of cold hard cash.” Insane or not, the bulls were right to be insane because the market has simply refused to break down, and in fact, may be tracing out a classic bull flag. I was awfully temped to get long volatility this week, and I’m glad I resisted the urge because the current market scenario — a slow grind up without much intraday movement — is deadly to long volatility trades. Why? Because it kills you a penny at a time. At least if you lose in a one big whoosh, you can be done with the trade and move on. What we’re seeing now is one of the nastiest pain trades I’ve ever seen.
Continue Reading -->If Loving This Market Is Wrong, the Bulls Don’t Wanna Be Right
It’s been quite a week, with the SPX, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq Composite, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 all making new all-time highs, leaving the bears crying on the floors. Now, sentiment was certainly bullish last week. But have the bulls gone completely insane after Thursday’s run up to SPX 2552.51? Let’s take a look at our 4 sentiment indicators to see how traders are feeling. (click here for a primer on the sentiment indicators below) 1) VIX Spread – Bullish Since October 6, 2014, when the CBOE changed the VIX calculation methodology, we’ve had a total of 53 days with a VIX low under 10. 52 of them have happened since April. And with today’s 9.11 print, 15 of them have happened in the last 15 days. So the VIX is still breaking new ground… underground, that is. Meanwhile, the 3-month spread is at +5.2, which means traders are extraordanarily bullish. (click here for a primer on the VIX spread) 2) CNN Fear & Greed Index – Bullish The Fear & Greed Index is at 95, marking a multi-year high. The F&G Index operates on a 1-100 scale, and a reading of 95 qualifies as extremely greedy. So again, we’re seeing extraordinary bullishness. 3) AAII Sentiment – Neutral The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that 35.6% of individual investors are bullish, up slightly from 33.6% last week. I’m really surprised this indicator hasn’t moved much as the market has soared in the past couple of weeks. However, this reading has been pretty depressed all year, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. 4) CBOE Equity Put-Call – Bullish The CBOE Equity-Put Call ratio was a 0.69 on Thursday, which is above average of 0.655. This indicates some skittishness ahead of the Friday jobs report. The 10-day moving average is 0.636, which is slightly below the long-term average, indicating higher-than-normal demand for call options. I would call this moderately bullish, with a little less enthusiasm than last week. If we see more rock-bottom readings, that could be a sign of true complacency. Conclusion Out of 4 sentiment indicators, we have: 3 bullish (flat from last week) 1 neutral (up from 0) 0 bearish (down from 1) We have 3 bullish, 1 neutral, and 0 bearish indicators this week. Let’s not mince words: the bulls are clearly insane. They think they’re destined to ride into the sunset on a magic carpet made of cold hard cash. I can see both sides of the coin here. The bulls may be insane… but they may also be right. Timing market turns based on sentiment indicators is awfully tricky. And remember, the trend can go on a lot longer than may seem reasonable. In particular, we’re in a whole new era for the VIX. No one knows how long this new era can go on. We’ve seen the VIX go through multi-year declines before, and who knows how long this one can go on? The lows in volatility feel like the highs in the Nasdaq in 1998-2000 or the housing highs last decade. I do suspect upside from here is limited, and I’m tempted to get long volatility via VIX calls or a similar instrument. But I admit — I’m having an awfully hard time making the decision.
Continue Reading -->The Collapsing VIX Just Set a New Record
The VIX hit a low of 9.53 early this morning, marking the 13th straight day with a low in the VIX below 10. This is the first time in history we have seen such a streak. In late to July August, we had a run with 17 of 19 days showing a sub-10 VIX. Let me break down just how bizarre these numbers are. Since January, 2, 1990, the VIX has dipped below 10 on exactly 69 days. 50 of these 69 days were after April 2017. 30 of these 69 days have been after June 2017. Now, on October 6, 2014, the CBOE began using a new method for calculating the VIX to incorporate weekly SPX options. For the sake of an apple to apples comparison, let’s look at those numbers. Since then, we have had a total of 51 days with a low in the VIX below 10. 50 of 51 happened after April 2017! And 30 of 51 happened after June 2017! This is historic… and insane. So is it time to bet on a spike in the VIX? I am considering doing so… but don’t think it’s easy money. Yes, volatility tends to mean-revert, but good luck figuring out when. Here is a 20-year monthly chart of the VIX: As you can see, there have been extended drops in the VIX. For example, the VIX had multi-year downtrends from 2003-2006 and from 2012-2014. We very well could be in another one now that extends to 2018 and beyond. And all of those massive spikes you see on the chart? They were very short-lived, and there’s no guarantee you could have acted quickly enough to lock in massive profits on volatility bets. And while you’re waiting for a spike, what’s happening to your SPX/SPY puts and VIX calls? They’re getting eaten alive by time decay. 2017’s absurdly low volatility feels like the inverse of the tech stock highs of the dot com boom. We all know it’s irrational. But it’s incredibly difficult to predict the end of the craze. I am strongly considering allocating a small amount of capital to far out-of-the-money VIX call options. Why? Because just as the market is underestimating volatility now, it’s likely to overestimate it in the future. The CBOE also recently introduced VIX options with an 8.50 strike price, which is likely a reaction to the VIX’ 8.84 print back on July 26. I suspect that when the VIX has its next megaspike, we’ll look back at this news as a contrarian indicator
Continue Reading -->Do Traders Love the Russell Rocket?
For most of September, stock market sentiment has been very bullish as indices made new highs. But with this week’s astounding surge in the Russell 2000, have the bulls truly gone crazy? Some traders believe this could be the start of a new “risk-on trade” into year-end, while others think this is the calm before the storm — especially since we’re heading into October, a historically volatile period. So let’s take a look at our 4 sentiment indicators to see how traders are feeling. (click here for a primer on the sentiment indicators below) 1) VIX Spread – Bullish The VIX hit a low of 9.51 on Friday morning, marking the 10th straight day with a sub-10 print. Meanwhile, the 3-month spread is at +4.2, which means traders are very, very bullish. When this number moves above +4.5, then it’s a clear sign of froth, and we could be there very soon. (click here for a primer on the VIX spread) 2) CNN Fear & Greed Index – Bullish The Fear & Greed Index is at 83, up from 66 last week. The F&G Index operates on a 1-100 scale, and a reading of 83 qualifies as extremely greedy. 3) AAII Sentiment – Bearish The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that just 33% of individual investors are bullish, down substantially from 40.1% last week. Frankly, I find this reading bizarre, since it was taken on Thursday, right after Wednesday’s massive small cap rally. However, this reading has been pretty depressed all year, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. 4) CBOE Equity Put-Call – Bullish The CBOE Equity-Put Call ratio was at just 0.52 on Thursday, which well below the long-term average of 0.655. It’s also the lowest reading since June 22, 68 trading days ago. The 10-day moving average is 0.641, which is slightly below the long-term average, and indicate higher-than-normal demand for call options. So we have a hyper-bullish short-term reading combined with a slighly bullish 10-day trend. On balance, that makes traders moderately bullish. If we see more rock-bottom readings, that could be a sign of true complacency. Conclusion Out of 4 sentiment indicators, we have: 3 bullish (flat from last week) 0 neutral (down from 1) 1 bearish (up from 0) We have 3 bullish, 0 neutral, and 1 bearish indicators this week. The crowd is still fairly bullish overall, but a little bit less so than last week, based on the drop in the AAII survey and more neutral bent to the CBOE equity put-call, Thursday’s extreme reading notwithstanding. This week’s readings are a little less crazy than last week’s but make no mistake about it: the crowd is very bullish. Looking forward, things are obviously a bit tricky. The Russell 2000 and banks are strong, which is a good thing, but it’s starting to look like they’ve come too far too fast. We’re also seeing weakness in market leader Apple (AAPL), and stagnation in the biotech sector, which is always a key area to watch to judge traders’ risk tolerance. The top callers are still coming out of the woodwork, but keep one thing in mind: trends are always tricky to judge because they can go a lot further than many seem reasonable.
Continue Reading -->Did Breaking SPX 2500 Put a Spell on the Bulls?
Last week, sentiment among traders went all-out bullish as the SPX flirted with the 2500 mark for the first time ever. Subsequently, the SPX grinded up to set a new all-time high at 2508.85 before backing down just a bit. So let’s see what’s changed this week. Are traders encouraged by a more hawkish Fed? Do they care at all about North Korea? Let’s find out using our 4 sentiment indicators. (click here for a primer on the sentiment indicators below) 1) VIX Spread – Bullish The VIX is once again hovering around the 10 level after going as low as 9.54 this week, indicating that traders are not pricing in much volatility. The 3-month spread is at +3.98, which means traders are fairly bullish. When this number moves above +4.5, then it’s a clear sign of froth, and we could get there soon. (click here for a primer on the VIX spread) 2) CNN Fear & Greed Index – Bullish The Fear & Greed Index is at 66, down slightly from 73 last week. The F&G Index operates on a 1-100 scale, and a reading of 66 qualifies as moderately bullish. 3) AAII Sentiment – Neutral The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that 40.1% of individual investors are bullish. This is down slightly from 41.3% last week. This 40.1% reading indicates that individual investors are basically neutral, though it’s much higher than readings we’ve seen throughout 2017. 4) CBOE Equity Put-Call – Bullish The CBOE Equity-Put Call ratio was at 0.66 Thursday, which is right in line with the long-term average of 0.655. The 10-day moving average is 0.625, which is below the long-term average, and indicate higher-than-normal demand for call options. Stretching out things just a little bit more, this measure has been below the long-term average for 14 of the last 18 trading days. So there have been a lot of folks gunning for more upside through the options market. Conclusion Out of 4 sentiment indicators, we have: 3 bullish (flat from last week) 1 neutral (flat) 0 bearish (flat) We have 3 bullish, 1 neutral, and 0 bearish indicators this week. This week’s readings are a little less crazy than last week’s but make no mistake about it: the crowd is very bullish. Last week, I said to watch for a possible drop in the VIX to the 9.5 to 9.75 range, which could mark extreme complacency. As noted earlier, we got a 9.54 VIX print on Thursday, and maybe we’re about to find out if that did indeed mark a near-term top. Keep in mind, we’ve had a lot of moments like this in 2017. Sentiment gets super-bullish, technicals look stretched, and the leaders start breaking down. We’re certainly seeing that with profit-taking in names like Apple (AAPL) and Nvidia (NVDA), as well as the biotech sector. And every time, just when it looks like all is lost, the market pulls a rabbit out of its hat and just keeps on chugging. The market ‘feels’ shortable, but one thing has me hesitating: the surging Russell 2000, which has been showing relative strength and looking to makes it own all-time high. That’s a sign there’s still an appetite for risk out there, and perhaps more upside to come.
Continue Reading -->Did a Whiff of SPX 2500 Makes the Bulls Crazy?
This week, the SPX set multiple records with a new all-time high at 2498.43. And the index is still within striking distance of 2500, even with a missile launch in North Korea and a terror attack in London. So are traders complacent? Are the bulls asleep at the wheel? Let’s find out using our 4 sentiment indicators. (click here for a primer on the sentiment indicators below) 1) VIX Spread – Bullish The VIX is once again hovering around the 10 level, indicating that traders are not pricing in much volatility. The 3-month spread is at +3.86, which means traders are fairly bullish. When this number moves above +4.5, then it’s a clear sign of froth. We’re obviously not there yet. (click here for a primer on the VIX spread) 2) CNN Fear & Greed Index – Bullish The Fear & Greed Index is at 73, nearly doubling from 38 last week. The F&G Index operates on a 1-100 scale, and a reading of 73 qualifies as fairly bullish. 3) AAII Sentiment – Neutral The latest AAII Sentiment Survey shows that 41.3% of individual investors are bullish. This is up huge from 29.3% last week. This 41.3% reading indicates that individual investors are neutral, though it’s much higher than the year-to-date average of 32.9%. This reading has been fairly depressed all year, so I was surprised to see such a big jump, even with the market’s upward momentum. 4) CBOE Equity Put-Call – Bullish The CBOE Equity-Put Call ratio was at 0.56 Thursday, which is well below the long-term average of 0.655. The 3-day moving average is 0.5633, and the 10-day moving average is 0.598. Both are also below the long-term average, and indicate higher-than-normal demand for call options. Conclusion Out of 4 sentiment indicators, we have: 3 bullish (up from 2 last week) 1 neutral (up from 1 last week) 0 bearish (down from 1 last week) Traders are much, much more bullish than last week, and this is perhaps best seen in the AAII Sentiment and CBOE equity put-call measures. AAII sentiment isn’t bullish. But it’s made a huge jump, and a relatively large number of individual investors just got on board the bull train. The CBOE equity put-call is even more interesting. It has been below the long-term average for 11 of the past 13 trading days, which implies that traders are loading up on calls. I love trolling the permabears by correctly pointing out that they always say everyone’s bullish — even when the numbers clearly point to bearishness. But today, the permabears are right. The crowd is very bullish, which leads to a very logical question: are we set for a fall? It’s tough to say. I would watch for a drop in the VIX to the 9.5 to 9.75 range. That could mark extreme complacency, providing a possible opportunity to speculate on a market dip and spike in volatility. In such a scenario, I would certainly consider buying SPY puts, since they provide a cheap, efficient, and liquid way to speculate on a market decline.
Continue Reading -->