Preço das casas dá maior salto de sempre no arranque da garantia pública

[Ulisses Pereira]

Deixo aqui um interessante artigo da Helen Meisler sobre o sentimento do mercado. Chamo a atenção para alguns indicadores de sentimento que estão no final do artigo e que não são muito divulgados.

Ulisses


"Sentiment Readings Snare Too Many Bears"

By Helene Meisler
Special to RealMoney.com
02/11/2003 09:19 AM EST

Those of you who have watched this market closely for the past week or so must believe that the averages have come down quite a bit. But step back and look at the last seven or eight trading days. The major indices are below where they were when I left for vacation, but they've reached these levels through more of the same dribbling down that's been happening for weeks.


The action has had almost no effect on my intermediate-term indicators, most of which are just about where they were when I left a little more than a week ago. The intermediate indicators still appear to be three-quarters of the way to making a bottom.

On the sentiment front, however, there are some very interesting points to be made. Many people have been discussing the Investors Intelligence numbers and the lack of bears in the survey. The continuing high reading in the bullish category isn't what bottoms are made of.

But I would note that this indicator tends to reflect the trading of the prior 10 days in the market, and because the averages only started dropping in earnest during the third week of January, we should expect some sort of lag. Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised to see a significant move when the next survey comes out Wednesday. I'll be shocked if the bullish reading remains high, and getting rid of the bulls would be a step in the right direction.

rarely pay much attention to the American Association of Individual Investors' sentiment surveys because I believe they're actually trader readings, not investor readings. However, when they move to an extreme, they're worth noting, as is the case now. The bulls are at 22.9%, a very low level. What's more amazing is that 51.4% of the survey's participants are looking for a correction. I'm not sure I've ever seen a reading this high.

But what really has my attention is the Specialist Short Ratio. On Jan. 21, I put this chart, along with the Member Short Ratio, in my column. I explained how such a high reading in the Member Short Ratio wasn't bullish. Well, in three short weeks the tables have turned, and in dramatic fashion.

The specialist reading never got as high as the member reading, but both have now come down significantly. And low readings in these two sentiment indicators are bullish, not bearish. This is a message that a down move from here is a buying opportunity and not likely to have much follow-through.

Next, the 21-day put/call ratio, which is no longer bearish, either. It hasn't become bullish yet, but it is telling us that we're getting late in the decline, just as it told us we were late in the rally a few weeks ago.

In the very short term, I can't make a strong case for the market being oversold. Also, the intermediate-term indicators haven't reached the type of readings that lead to better rallies. These two factors tell me that we may still have some more work on the downside. But with the sentiment readings lining up in the too-bearish camp now, it seems to me that we're getting quite late in the decline.

Just as rallies that are late in their phase are sharp and short-lived, declines that are late in their phase are sharp and short-lived, as well. So a big whack in here isn't out of the question. But down is good. I think it leads to a better rally. "

(in www.realmoney.com)