Attitudinal

We get irked when TV pundits misrepresent the mood of equity investors as unduly pessimistic based one or two (or zero) data points. Among the dozens of “Attitudinal” indicators we track, an overwhelming majority show professional and retail investors have jumped back into the fray.

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Market bulls remain mystified by the lack of enthusiasm for stocks given the proximity of U.S. indexes to all-time highs. They view this relative indifference as a contrarian positive—the “wall of worry” argument.

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Here are some brief follow-up notes on topics covered in recent months’ Green Books.

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This issue of Leuthold Quick Takes reviews the conflicted nature of investor sentiment as seen by Doug Ramsey (Chief Investment Officer) and Jim Paulsen (Chief Investment Strategist).

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Throughout the spring and summer, the market could alternatively be characterized as “divergent” or “disjointed”—but until very recently it could not be considered “distributive.” Now, Mid and Small Caps have hit a short-term air pocket and breadth figures were exceptionally poor at September’s scattered highs in the DJIA and S&P 500.

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The Major Trend Index fell into its negative zone last week and we trimmed the already below-average net equity exposure in tactical accounts by a few more points, to a current 41-42%.

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The MTI’s Attitudinal category has held stable over the last several months, an impressive (and contrarily bullish) feat considering the steady onslaught of new bull market highs.

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The less-well-known Stock Market Confidence survey from the Conference Board has poked into “excessively optimistic” territory for the first time since 2003

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The S&P 500 closed the first week of January at a new cycle high, up 9.2% from the pre-election low made on November 4th.

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The above caption—and Jimmy Buffett song title—comes from the “View From The North Country” section in the first-ever Green Book published in November 1981. Not much has changed in 35 years.

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With the S&P 500 levitating near its all-time high, stock market leadership is peculiar—characterized by a flight to quality. And, despite the market’s violent bounce off February lows, there have been only four new market highs set by key indexes on our “Bull Market Top Timeline” table.

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This month’s “Of Special Interest” allots eight pages to the (opposition) view that the correction is over, featuring charts we find the most threatening to our bearish stance. Based on its sudden popularity among the press and punditry, the indicator in this chart—highlighting the air-pocket in investor confidence—perhaps should have been part of that feature. Here’s why it wasn’t.

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We’ve been correctly positioned near our tactical portfolios’ equity minimums, yet we’re oddly compelled to use this month’s “Of Special Interest” section as a very public second-guessing of that move.

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When the “most hated bull market on record” finally suffers a steep decline, it’s reasonable to expect that the hatred might evolve into true revulsion.

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The U.S. stock market has largely shrugged off the latest round of worries related to China’s stock market collapse, the new down-leg in crude oil, a more hawkish tone in Fed-speak, and sizable second-quarter declines in S&P 500 sales and earnings.

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The Volume Oscillator discussed in this section is one of several encouraging developments within our Attitudinal work that has sent that category to its least negative reading (-57, Chart 1) since July 2013.

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Margin debt levels are high, but that’s because stock prices are high. The critical relationship is the comparative rates-of-change in Margin Debt and stock prices.

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The stock market staged a two-day bearish reversal beginning a few hours after the release of the March employment report, a decline that could —based on the bearish status of a single MTI category (Attitudinal)—carry further before it is finished. But with the S&P 500 (and many other U.S. equity indexes) recording a bull market high as recently as April 2, it’s too early to argue the market top is “in.”

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With our equity exposure high and our disciplines still tilting bullish, we’re naturally more concerned with what might go wrong than missing out on some kind of 2013 repeat.

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Deteriorating Technicals drove the move to Neutral, but a new positive reading in the Attitudinal category gives some hope to the bulls.

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