As Dave has already pointed out Barron's has an interesting edition this week. The title in large print is
"The Bull is Back!". But more interestingly (atleast for me) is the subtitle:
So say America's upbeat portfolio managers, who see the Dow rising nearly 10% by year end.
So its not Barron's claiming that the bull market is back, but rather reporting on what their 145 Big Money Poll respondents are saying.
What jumped at me were the following three points. First, the Big Money Poll sentiment question:
very bullish 9%
bullish 51.1%
neutral 28.6%
bearish 10.5%
very bearish 0.5%
So 60.1% are either bullish or very bullish and 11% are bearish or very bearish. Hmmmm.
Later they were asked "Are stocks a buy at current levels?"
Yes 69.8%
No 30.2%
Although these guys are 'professionals' their responses don't stray far from regular Mom and Pop investors as the AAII sentiment poll showed on April 24th 2003:
63.0% Bullish
18.0% Neutral
19.0% Bearish
(I'm comparing their responses to April 24th 2003, two weeks ago, as I believe such an article was in the making for more than a few days)
Second, Gustafson (a money manager) says that he has recently taken the cash level of his fund from 20% to 10%. Rodriguez, says that he has taken it from 22% to 9%. I don't know if this is true for them as a group, but if it is, you gotta wonder.
And finally, they pubish the historical BMP's picks/pans performance after 6 months and after 12 months. Gotta give it to Barrons' for disclosure! And their performance? Abysmal. These guys (on average) can't trade their way out of a wet paper bag.
Conclusion? I feel very good regarding my short posture in this market.
