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Time To End The 'Most Hated Bull Market' Meme

Published 04/10/2016, 01:25 AM
Updated 07/09/2023, 06:31 AM
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We’ve been hearing for years now how this is supposedly, “the most hated bull market in Wall Street history.” In fact, it’s become such a popular meme that even USA Today picked it up this past week and ran with it. The trouble is there is absolutely no evidence at all to support this idea.

In fact, all the sentiment studies I look at suggest this has been one of the most beloved stock markets in Wall Street history. The Investors’ Intelligence survey is just coming off its longest sustained period of extreme bullishness about the S&P 500 ever recorded. SPX Bull/Bear Ratio

Chart via Yardeni.com

Surveys are fine but I prefer to look at what investors are actually doing with their money. Confirming the extreme bullishness in the II survey is mutual fund cash levels, which recently hit an all-time low as a percent of total assets.

Mutual_Fund_Cash_Levels vs SPX

Chart via SentimenTrader.com

Another record-breaking extreme in bullishness witnessed recently can be seen in the positioning of traders in the Rydex family of mutual funds.

Rydex Fund BullIndex Daily

Beyond this small group of mutual funds, we can also look at total household assets as reported by the Fed. There has never been a time in history when investors have allocated as much money to stocks relative to cash as they have today.

Ratio of Household Equities to MMF Assets

Furthermore, investors aren’t just allocating a massive amount of money to stocks, they are borrowing money from their brokers to buy even more, and doing so in record amounts.

NYSE Margin Debt 1995-2016

Even when you adjust margin debt for the growth in the overall economy, it recently hit an all-time record high. (And, btw, this doesn’t bode well for the, “bull market.”)

Margin Debt to GDP 1995-2016

It may be hard to believe but the fact is every one of these measures shows more euphoria among investors than any other time in at least a generation or two, including the dotcom bubble. So if you could stop calling this, “the most hated bull market in history,” that’d be great.

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