**If you have trouble reading the chart below, you can e-mail me
at “contact us” for a larger print copy. My response time to
your request will depend on my travel schedule.
Today is as good a time as any to update some information I
have previously provided in this space.
The “Investors Intelligence” reading is the result of a survey of
over 100 financial newsletter writers that is taken weekly by
Michael Burke and his group. Historically, it has been one of
many indicators that strategists use to gauge market sentiment
and it is often viewed as a contrarian indicator, i.e., a high bullish
reading may mean rough sledding ahead (an excess of
optimism), while a high number of bears may signal that we are
near a market bottom (too much pessimism.everyone who
wanted to sell already has).
The survey is released on Wednesday and represents the
accumulation of data from the prior 7-day period. For the
purposes of this table, I have listed the figures as you would see
them in Barron”s the following Saturday along with the closing
price for the Dow Jones that particular week. Thus, if you
wanted to be more exact about the data, you should really match
up the bull / bear readings against the prior week”s Dow figure to
gauge the true background for the data.
In the old days, this reading was of more value than it probably is
today. When the number of bulls or bears was above 60% or
below 20%, it was worth noting. Yet seldom have we seen
readings of 60% or higher. A recent exception was just this past
February, and, as I commented in my “Week in Review” column
at the time, that proved to be the solid contrarian indicator one
would expect from a reading such as that as the market
proceeded to drop significantly. Since then the bullish reading
has declined, as you would expect.
—Brian Trumbore
