Weekly Poll: Even After The Ugly Red Candle, SPY +1.5% YTD. Where To Now?

[shortie]

i don't think anybody will argue that last Friday was an ugly finish to what had developed as a nice bullish week through Thursday. Several Major ETFs finished below 20 dma. The exceptions is XLE that barely budged. Even with the sell-off SPY is still +1.5% for the year. Of course one more day like this Friday will take care of that.

I have mixed feeling about next week. Looking at several other tops in the recent year one can see that the sell-off is tipically fast and furious once it gets started. One the other hand, this time XLE is not participating, at least not yet. So, there are still buyers out there. Also, VIX went quickly through the roof +24% which indicates that a bounce in equities is already possible due to this spike in fear.

I am leaning bearish, but would like to see further quick slide in equities including XLE that would overwhelm VIX-spike induced bounces.

 

[shortie]

thestreet.com poll is slightly bearsih. it was slightly bullish last week. it's been a long time since i saw that poll bearish. maybe in Nov 2010?

Bullish 41.57% 116 votes
Bearish 45.51% 127 votes
Neutral 12.9% 36 votes

 

[shortie]

the papers blame Egypt. will the market turn up once the Egyptian crisis is resolved? i think Egypt was more of an excuse than anything else. does Egypt really matter that much? US market was forming a top for a while and naturally needed to correct.

US stock market falls as Egypt unrest continues
Washington Post - David S. Hilzenrath - ‎16 hours ago‎

Egypt riots knocks Wall St to biggest drop in nearly 6 months
Reuters - Angela Moon - ‎Jan 28, 2011‎

Dow Declines 166 on Egypt Unrest
Wall Street Journal - Mark Gongloff - ‎Jan 28, 2011‎

Egyptian Riots cause market unrest in US
TopNews United States - Cristina Warne - ‎12 hours ago‎

Why Egypt protests unnerved the stock market today
Christian Science Monitor - Ron Scherer - ‎Jan 28, 2011‎

Saudi Stock Market Falls 6.4%
Wall Street Journal (blog) - ‎9 hours ago‎

Market Suffers As Protests Escalate In Egypt, Ford And Amazon Disappoint
istockAnalyst.com (press release) - ‎7 hours ago‎

Stocks reel on Egypt; Dow halts weekly wins
MarketWatch - ‎Jan 28, 2011‎

 

[trefoil]

Bullish. Friday was too fast on the downside. Still watching for the correction, but Friday just looked like the usual shake'n'bake in the middle of a bull that happens from time to time.
Reversals need to start out sneaking up on people. This was the opposite.

 

[shortie]

an interesting tidbit about the recent sentiment: "Rydex Total Bull v. Total Bear" stood at the highest level in 10 years (!!) just two weeks ago. ask yourself why the majority would be more bullish now than anytime during both this bull run (2009-present) and the previous one (2003-07)?

one caveat is that this is only one of the measurement of investor sentiment and the other ones may not be as extreme.

http://www.benzinga.com/11/01/817876/investor-sentiment-this-time-will-not-be-different

 

[shortie]

Cramer was superbullish a few days ago:

"While the bears on The Street are growling about inflation fears, Cramer thinks 2011 is the year the torch of global growth will be passed from India and China to the U.S now that larger domestic companies are just beginning to restart hiring. He took issue with those quick to short stocks; "short bonds, don't short stocks...bonds are wrong.

....

"This is a powerful bull market," he declared, comparing it to similar markets of the 80s and 90s. The difference is the current bull market is broader than those in the past." http://seekingalpha.com/article/248983-cramer-s-stop-trading-this-is-a-powerful-bull-market-1-26-11 >>

and he is still bullish:

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- "Today was rough," Jim Cramer admitted to the viewers of his "Mad Money" TV show Friday.

"But don't let this Egyptian sell-off scare you away from the whole market," he continued as he laid out his game plan for next week's trading. Cramer told viewers to keep their eye on the ball, as the selling will create tremendous buying opportunities. ...

">> http://www.thestreet.com/story/1098...-weeks-game-plan-update-1.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN

 

[S2007S]

I heard on cnbc after the close that the selling was overdone and that there could be buying opportunities, hahahah

nearly 9 straight up weeks in a row, stocks up hundreds and thousands of percent in the last 2 years and the first major drop in over 2 months and they are saying the downside was a bit overdone!! I like it!

 

[ScalperJoe]

Quote from S2007S:

I heard on cnbc after the close that the selling was overdone and that there could be buying opportunities, hahahah

Yep, I heard that also. CNBC will always tout "buying opportunities" so the long-only players keep buying on the way down, while the SHORT SELLERS take the other side and milk it, even if it lasts for a week or so.

 

[startraitor]

1200.

 

[Rearden Metal]

Quote from startraitor:

1200.

1200 <i>next week</i>? That's a pretty bold forecast.

Anyways, this poll has been voted overwhelmingly bearish. So my question is: Does anyone know/remember previous 'coming week prediction' polls here on ET? Does anyone know/remember if the market ended up going in the direction we thought it would... or if it moved the other way? I'm just trying to check if these polls are a useful sentiment indicator, or if they are worthless.