Over the last few months I have written about the Investors Intelligence Report on several occasions. Most recently, I wrote about the report on March 1, and I was pointing out how the peaks in bullish sentiment were forming a pattern of lower highs.
With the increase in volatility over the last three weeks, I expected to see the spread between bullish advisers and bearish advisers shrinking.
The two percentages have moved closer together, but we are still looking at 52.2 percent on the bullish side and only 21.1 percent on the bearish side.
The gap of 31.1 between the two percentages is significant.
Looking at the differentials over the last few years, any time the spread between the two percentages exceeded 38, the market corrected shortly thereafter. The spread between the two exceeded 38 back on Dec. 22 when the bullish percentage hit 58.8 and the bearish percentage came in at 20.6.
The fact that the spread is still 31.1 is concerning. The spread was close to zero last summer when the correction came to a halt. The percentages will have to change dramatically over the coming weeks for the spread to get anywhere near the zero level.
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