Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Morning Briefing for December 1st: Bearish Sentiment Dominates


Props to the excellent SentimenTrader service for the catch on the rise of bearishness yesterday, particularly in the morning trade. The CBOE equity put/call ratio, calculated for each half-hour period, exceeded 1.0 in mid-morning; by the end of the day, it was a still-elevated .78. As the chart shows above, that is territory more recently associated with market bottoms than tops.

It is this bearishness that is helping keep prices relatively elevated as we correct. If such a flat correction continues, keeping us above last week's Thanksgiving lows, I would expect a sizable move to new bull highs in stocks.
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