Poll results and some market thoughts
Well, I wish the results of our latest “Who’s more scared?” poll were more lopsided and therefore a great contrarian indicator for the markets. But as my 7th grade basketball coach once said, “You can wish in one hand and spit in the other, and you tell me which one will fill up first.”
So anyway, the results of the poll were interesting, if not necessarily indicative of market direction. We had more than 100 respondents on TradingWithCody.com and a few dozen responses from readers of The Cody Word blog on Marketwatch, and about ten responses from WallStreetAllStars.com readers.
Here’s how the numbers broke down:
53 said the bulls are more scared right now.
59 said the bears are more scared right now.
And most interestingly, 39 didn’t answer the question at all, but rather pushed their own analysis like this:
We are wayyy OVERDUE for a correction. According to the negative groth and projections, we need to start now before we have a collapse…perhaps mid to late Feb we should start this downhill drive…I dont want a bubble and I dont want a bubble to pop either… ”
— Marketwatch emailer
—
Let me give you some facts, then you will figure out the answer yourself, hopefully ? !
1. Any house in Houston sells for only 20% the price if the house is in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong-kong, Tokyo, Taipei, …..
2. Any job in Houston pays at least twice or more than the same job if one works in these cities mentioned above.
It does not takes a rocket scientist to figure out if Obama is serious about immigration reform. Why Monarch Butterfly migrates freely ?
When push comes to shovel, he can charge $100,000 a head flat rate for so called green card, Does any one here knows how much the $ market price in the black market ?
The impact of demand of housing and everythings goes with it, cars, appliance, furniture, utility, and service industries ,…..
Imaging all these public traded companies, demand of their goods and services goes thru the roof ?
Bullish or bearish ? ”
— Marketwatch commenter
—
WHOLE WORLD on printing binge. Devaluaing currency?? Look at Japan, Market way up……But Yen down vs dollar so in reality value is same as it was 5 years ago. Talking heads spin data, All try to put positive spin on bad situation. What the heck, just imagine them on CNBC or Bloomberg sayong sell the sky is falling? They would start run on bank. So, as usual, they say buy, hold the line and they sell in the background., This is the biggest ponzi scheme going, The house of cards will fall. Do your due diligence and get to the truth, We are BROKE as a country. Head for the hills.”
– TradingWithCody.com subscriber chat
Usually there’s no more than 10% or so who debate themselves instead of answering the question. What the spike in emotional arguments means is anybody’s guess given that there’s just not any other consensus or anomaly in the data this time.
To review, this poll is most helpful as a markets indicator when it is overwhelmingly lopsided in one direction. If the more than 90% of respondents are say the bulls are more scared, it’s often a great indicator that the markets are about to spike higher. And when the fear amongst the bears is spiked and the respondents recognize that with a 90% plus vote, there’s usually a big pullback impending.
With a split like this, the most likely conclusion is probably that the markets are going to be rangebound and with the spike in self-debating commentary, maybe that rangebound will be include a lot of 100 point daily moves in the DJIA just to keep everybody off balance.
I’m not doing any trading so far today. One of the most important lessons I can remind you guys of is to not force any trading or investing. There will be some great pitches coming down the pike, and we don’t have to force them in the meantime.
