Lowest percentage of bullish newsletter editors since March 2009
Source: Short Side of Long
Throughout this bull market, which has lasted for over 6 years now, we have heard many times that sentiment was as low as during the depths of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008/09. However, the majority of the time that was just not the case.
Having said that, the story right now has changed—at least according to one historically reliable indicator which, as you can see from the chart above comparing S&P 500 activity to bullish sentiment, has now dropped like a rock.
The Investor Intelligence Survey has been around for many decades and it aims to track the mood and opinion of financial advisors and financial newsletter editors. Readings reported yesterday show that bullish advisors have now fallen below 30% for the first time since March 2009. Furthermore, this reading is two and half standard deviations below the mean.
Historically, it is very rare to see the bullish percentage fall below 30% in this indicator. A closer reading of the chart above shows that over the last two decades, bullish readings below 30% were seen during October 2002, November 2008 and March 2009.