Investor Sentiment: Happy Thanksgiving!

In this holiday shortened week, there won't be much to gleam from market action in the coming week.

Over the past couple of months, Mondays have been kind to the bulls. Wednesday will be light as traders ready for Turkey Day on Thursday. Friday is another snooze fest that seems to go to the bulls --why spoil a great American holiday?

Will this week be another repeat of the last two where the best gains are on Monday and then the market struggled all week long? It seems plausible. Stock sponsorship (i.e., volume) has been pathetic, and I can't see that improving this week either.

Over the longer term or beyond next week we say what we said last week:

"The major equity indices are in a topping process. This implies a trading range at best. There is risk of a down draft as markets "fueled" by the proverbial "liquidity" are prone to quick sell offs. The outlier trade is a market blow off or a spike in prices, and I do not rule this possibility out because of the ongoing downtrend in the Dollar Index. It is possible but it is not the high odds play. This is not the market environment that will take you from here to there."

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

The "Dumb Money" indicator, which is shown in figure 1, looks for extremes in the data from 4 different groups of investors who historically have been wrong on the market: 1) Investor Intelligence; 2) Market Vane; 3) American Association of Individual Investors; and 4) the put call ratio. The "Dumb Money" indicator shows that investors are extremely bullish.

Figure 1. "Dumb Money" Indicator/ weekly

The "Smart Money" indicator is shown in figure 2. The "smart money" indicator is a composite of the following data: 1) public to specialist short ratio; 2) specialist short to total short ratio; 3) SP100 option traders. The Smart Money indicator is neutral.

Figure 2. "Smart Money" Indicator/ weekly

Figure 3 is a weekly chart of the S&P500 with the InsiderScore "entire market" value in the lower panel. From the InsiderScore weekly report we get the following three insights: 1) after stripping out the buying in the financial sector from Regional Bank insiders, the "entire market" score was the second worst weekly score since June, 2007; 2) Technology and Basic Material were the driving forces of negative sentiment; 3) insider buying in the Regional Bank sector has been noteworthy and we highlighted this in the article: "The New World Of Investing".

Figure 3. InsiderScore Entire Market/ weekly

Figure 4 is a daily chart of the S&P500 with the amount of assets in the Rydex Money Market Fund in the lower panel. When the money market fund is flush with cash, one can assume that the Rydex timers (like market participants in general) are fearful of market losses. From a contrarian perspective, these are good buying opportunities. When the amount of assets are low (like now), these market timers are all in; one should be on the lookout for market tops. There is little buying power left. As of Friday's close, assets in the money market fund remain very near their lowest levels since the rally began in March, 2009.

Figure 4. Rydex Money Market/ daily