CALDEIRÃO DE BOLSA

Eu regressei ontem de férias e hoje resolvi colocar aqui os artigos que foram publicados desde a minha ausencia, dai os artigos possam estar um pouco desvirtuados em relação ao tempo.

Este por acaso não está assim tanto, foi publicado em 21 de Agosto - quinta-feira passada.

A generalidade dos artigos que aqui coloco são publicados no mesmo dia ou no dia anterior, dai eu não colocar a data de publicação. Se voltar acontecer novo desvirtuamento em relação á data de publicação, eu divulgo a data do artigo.

Abraço!

Surfer... interessantes artigos, mas vou fazer um pequeno pedido: os artigos no site devem ter a data de publicação.. poderias indicar isso?
É que por vezes ler a 25 Agosto e ser de 24 ou 22 ou 21 faz diferença.

Cump.

In the past week or so, the stock market has pretty much sloughed off the worst blackout in U.S. history and two gruesome terrorist attacks in the Middle East. After Wednesday, you can add Hewlett-Packard's disappointing earnings and another rout in Treasuries to the list of events that seemingly had the potential to prompt a serious selloff but didn't.
Granted, there's been some good corporate and economic news in the same period. But recent gains, including 52-week highs for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite earlier this week, as well as Wednesday's very modest setback, speak to a market in a bullish mode, assuming there's truth to the old adage: "It's not the news but the market's reaction to the news that counts."

The market's resilience to negative news is both a reflection of and, subsequently, contributor to an overriding positive sentiment among market participants. The CBOE Market Volatility Index (VIX) and its Nasdaq counterpart (VXN) both rose Wednesday but remain mired near multiyear lows. The put/call ratio settled at 0.62 Wednesday and has been below 1.0 every day this month save Aug. 7.

Meanwhile, Chartcraft.com reported that bullish sentiment in its Investors' Intelligence poll rose to 55.1% as of Aug. 20 from 52% on Aug. 13. Bearish sentiment fell to 18.4% from 19% while those expecting a mere correction slid to 26.5% from 29%.

As of Aug. 13, the American Association of Individual Investors' survey was at over 50% bulls. Optimism among retail investors is further evinced by the $17.4 billion of inflows in into equity mutual funds in July and another $4 billion in the first two weeks of August, according to AMG Data Services.

In sum, there seems to be a self-replicating cycle afoot. Investors' faith that highly accommodative monetary and fiscal policies will boost economic growth is prompting gains for stocks, which is making investors yet more bullish.

However, conventional wisdom says sentiment is a contrary indicator -- - if everyone is so bullish, they've presumably committed their capital already. Thus, many skeptics predict these indicators augur a sharp fall for equities, and the fact people are again betting on a 'Greenspan put' is truly frightening.

Still, the market has turned a deaf ear to those concerns for a few months now and anecdotal evidence suggests sentiment is maybe not so bullish after all.

Sentiment All Over

"Consensus is building that we'll have a fall splat," said one trader, unintentionally echoing the growing skepticism or outright bearishness among many including Bob Marcin, Cody Willard, Helene Meisler, James dePorre , Alan Farley and, of course, Bill Fleckenstein.

Although those folks don't necessarily represent mainstream opinion, "I think people are not bullish," agreed John Roque, technical analyst at Natexis Bleichroeder and a RealMoney.com contributor. "Guys with good numbers year to date aren't raising their hands in the air saying, 'I'm getting longer.'"

Ironically, Roque is fairly upbeat, in part because of the dour attitudes he sees among others. "If the banks don't weaken, the likelihood the market corrects importantly is very small," he said, suggesting that as long as Citigroup remains above $42.50, the stock, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange/KBW Bank Index and, ultimately, the major averages, should hold up.

The technician dismissed the low VIX as confirmation of what has occurred, not a harbinger of a "big reversal." (As an aside, many observers seem to be dismissing the low VIX these days, similar to March 2002, which ultimately proved to be a dangerous mentality.)

Rick Bensignor, chief technical strategist at Morgan Stanley, didn't dismiss the VIX but does believe "there are definitely people out there who think the market's inability to make progress in the last 12 weeks [despite] good economic news is meaningful."

By: Aaron Task