July 2nd Blogger Sentiment Poll

Headed into a short week, the bloggers are more uncertain than anything.  The NYSE will close at 1pm tomorrow and is closed on Wednesday.

Blogger Sentiment Poll Participants:

24/7 Wall Street (-) Abnormal Returns  Ant & Sons (-) Alpha Trends  Bill a.k.a. nodoodahs (+) Big Picture  Bloggin' Wall Street  Capital Chronicle  Carl Futia (+) Confused Capitalist  ContraHour  Controlled Greed (N) Crossing Wall Street  Crowder Blog  CXO Advisory (+) Fly on the Wall (+) Dash of Insight (N) Day Trade Team  Daily Dose of Optimism (+) Daily Options Report  Deal Breaker  Dr. John Rutledge  Elliot Wave Lives On (N) Fallond Stock Picks (-) Fickle Trader  Global Economic Analysis  Hedgefolios (-) Information Arbitrage (N) In The Money  Daily Blog Watch  Jack Stevison (-) Kirk Report  Knight Trader  Learning Curve (-) MaoXian  ChrisPerruna.com (+) Michael Comeau  Millionaire Now (N) Naked Shorts  Peridot Capitalist (N) Quant Investor (N) Random Roger's Big Picture (-) SeekingAlpha  SelfInvestors  Shark Report (+) Sigma Options  Stock Advisors  ShadowTrader  Tech Trader Daily  Trade King  Trader Feed  Trader Tim  Ugly Chart  Wall Street Folly  WindRiver Blog  Wishing Wealth

Comments

[Bill a.k.a. NO DooDahs]

Of the disclosers, only two shifted, Ant & Sons from + to -, and Dash of Insight from + to N. That means still more of the non-disclosing folk are getting scared off. Good.

The Traders-talk poll is now overwhelmingly bearish as well, with bears 2:1 and shorts almost 2:1 versus longs. Good. BTW, my informal review of their archives shows a slight bearish bias, not as strong as the blogger poll's, and a good number of cross-contaminants with some Bear forums.

I'm close to 100% long, bullish. We'll see what happens!

[Mark Young]

Interesting results.

This is a fairly new poll, so I have no idea how others might read this result. I will offer that I've found that when our Fearless Forecaster polls and my Wall St. Sentiment Survey show dead even splits, the market usually resolves lower. Upon occasion, even splits can mark a turning point, however, including a low.

If the same holds true with this data, we might have some weakness ahead.

I note that the Fearless Forecaster polls show a lot of Bears, which makes for a very interesting mish-mash of sentiment.

Mark

[Mark Young]

Bill,

One serious caveat on Traders-talk.com polls:

Those guys tend to be right at turns. The archives are available to you if you'd like to check them out.

One other tid bit: 3 of the most popular posters/better traders are Bearish. That can tilt the board results occasionally.

I use the 5-day SMA of the Fully Long/Fully Short ratio to smooth out such aberrations. In an up trend, <100 is constructive. In a down trend, it takes a reading of <60 to get me bulled up.

[Bill a.k.a. NO DooDahs]

I did check the archives, Mark.

Here's Feb 27th.
http://www.traders-talk.com/mb2/index.php?showtopic=66795
And Feb 26th.
http://www.traders-talk.com/mb2/index.php?showtopic=66725
They walked right into that one, just like a lot of us did. They actually got more long the morning before the crash.

Here's the opinion poll at the bottom of the Feb/Mar 2007 correction.
http://www.traders-talk.com/mb2/index.php?showtopic=67718

Here's May 10 2006.
http://www.traders-talk.com/mb2/index.php?showtopic=52604
And their actual positions on May 11 2006.
http://www.traders-talk.com/mb2/index.php?showtopic=52655
You may remember what happened on May 11 2006, right? They walked right into that one, too.

Here's the opinion poll at the morning after the bottom of the May/July 2006 correction.
http://www.traders-talk.com/mb2/index.php?showtopic=56229

Here they were, bearish at the bottom of the Oct 2005 correction.
http://www.traders-talk.com/mb2/index.php?showtopic=42868

Here they were, bullish at the beginning of the Oct 2005 correction.
http://www.traders-talk.com/mb2/index.php?showtopic=42314

Still wanna talk about them catching the turns, Mark?

[Mark Young]

Bill,

The opinion polls are different from the actual position polls. Trust me, I look at them all every day. People pay me to do it.

If you look at the opinion polls, extreme readings are definitely fadable, but over time and on a short-term basis (these guys are more short term), it seems like the opinion poll is just slightly better than a toss up--i.e. they are right more often (just) than they are wrong, but not by too much.

The Actual Position Poll, however, is quite a different matter. E.g. at the EXACT low on 7/17 they were heavily Bullish.

SPX FLong PLong Fl PShort FShort
1234.39 35.29% 17.65% 21.57% 7.84% 17.65%

So, you had BETTER not just fade these pollees at possible turns. Certainly, don't ignore other reliable sentiment set ups just because these guys are leaning--they often lean the right at at turns.

I'll dig up some historic charts and upload them somewhere for you.

[Bill a.k.a. NO DooDahs]

Mark, YOU DIDN'T EVEN READ THE LINKS I posted. I clearly linked several times to the ACTUAL POSITION POLL RESPONDEES. I've seen the charts. I have seen your board.

I believe I'm wasting my time with you, so this is for the benefit of other readers. Oh, and thanks for mentioning you get paid, b/c this is part of your effort to drum up paid subscribers.

The first link I posted shows the ACTUAL POSITION POLL RESPONDEES as 24:9 fully long versus fully short, and 30:18 partially long to partially short, just before the market tanked on Feb 27.

The second link I posted shows the ACTUAL POSITION POLL RESPONDEES as being less bullish than they were on the day of tanking, as of Feb 26.

So those two links clearly show your ACTUAL POSITION POLL RESPONDEES as being blindsided.

I also linked to the ACTUAL POSITION POLL RESPONDEES for May 11, 2006, where bulls were 36:23 over bears, and fully committed were 17:13.

I did link to "opinions" for Oct 13, 2005, because you have the polls split at that point in time, so here's the ACTUAL POSITION POLL RESPONDEES for that date, lo and behold, fully short is 3:1 over fully long, right at the bottom.
http://www.traders-talk.com/mb2/index.php?showtopic=42867

Oh, here are the ACTUAL POSITION POLL RESPONDEES for Oct 4, 2005, just before the slide hit:
http://www.traders-talk.com/mb2/index.php?showtopic=42313

Now, go get some paid subs to give the rest of you predictions to:
http://www.traders-talk.com/mb2/index.php?showtopic=72230&st=10#

A quote, in case he chooses to edit the post:
"The rest of week's prediction is reserved for paying subs." And a winky face.

[Mark Young]

Bill,

I only read one link. I have much more pressing things to do, but I wanted to make sure you weren't misrepresenting the reality of the situation. I corrected you. That I get paid for my research is irrelevant to our points' merit, just as your amateur status is also irrelevant.

I'm happy to send over some data or links to charts for folks to look at for themselves.

I also want to say that I'm not saying that the FF's are always right, just that they do have a knack of leaning the right way. Not perfectly, but more than I'd be comfortable fading, I can tell you.

I don't have time to go through every instance, but your October 13th '05 example is an intersting one. You are right, the Fully Long Bulls vs. Fully short ratio was small, BUT it's noteworthy that the partially long Bulls were way up there. Now, if they were a great fade, it seems that more Bulls were long than Bears were short, right at the lows.

1176.84 10.26% 35.90% 17.95% 7.69% 28.21%

Additionally, exactly to days and 10 points off the lows, they were leaning heavily long 150% more aggressively long than aggressively short.

That's not super-duper compelling, but if you only looked at these folks as a fade, you might well have been thrown off by this data, and thus have been fighting a strong market, which was my point. This seems to be something you aren't getting. I don't know why.

What I am flummoxed by is the fact that you think I'm trying to drum up business. I've never mentioned my service. I only mentioned my professional status to make you aware that I'm very, VERY familiar with the data that we're talking about. I was hoping to correct your (surprisingly arrogant) misread of the sentiment, not drum up business.

Now that I've spent all this time addressing yahoo-style abuse, I've not got the time to compile the raw data for you or others as promised. Maybe later today or next week I'll have time to make it available.

[Bill a.k.a. NO DooDahs]

When you said they "tended to be right at turns," you were begging for a correction (pun intended).

You haven't seen abuse yet, and you won't, from me, at this venue.

[Mark Young]

Bill,

It's crummy and insulting to pretend that someone's professional status invalidates their analysis. To be dismissive of someone on that basis when they are sharing intimate knowledge of a matter is abusive and discourages open discussion. To pretend otherwise is to evade responsibility.

And I'll stress you are dead wrong in your INTERPRETATION of the data. It's far more nuanced than you understand. Even in the examples you so proudly mentioned. Look deeper and learn.

[Bill a.k.a. NO DooDahs]

Don't put words in my mouth. I never said your professional status had any bearing on your analysis, I merely implied that your presence on this thread the past several weeks was an attempt to draw traffic in order to get some scripts.

Ta-ta.

[Mark Young]

Bill, you're evading.

While I'm happy to get business, obviously I must be getting something else out of this since I've not mentioned my service. Now, what was the purpose of accusing me only coming here to get business?

Seems that you want to somehow diminish my analysis? Marginalize my contribution? Make yourself seem more, what, important? Sage? What? I just don't get it. I mean, you're long and right.

Not only that but the data suggests now that you're going to get more right, at least near term.

Anyway, I'll post charts when I upload them.