Monday, January 22, 2007

JANUS, THE TWO-FACED GOD:

After an Up-Escalator Fall, we can now blame this month's volatility on Janus, January's namesake, and Monday's downmove on reaction to Friday's option expiry. The Hirsch Almanac states that so goes January, so goes the year, although this is slightly flawed since the year contains January, giving it a head start in either direction.
Since Barron's has seen fit to delete the Citi/Smith-Barney Panic/Euphoria Index, it is being replaced by Birinyi's tickersense.typepad.com Blogger's poll of sophisticated investment writers. Time will tell if it is a contrary or direct indicator. We start this out with 21% Bulls and 45% Bears.
Standouts last week were the new highs on the Dow and good breadth on large caps. Although the Inv.Intell. Bulls dropped from 55 to 50%, the AAII Bulls jumped up from 44 to 57%, while Bears dropped from 34 to 27% -quite a gap.
Mutual fund and ETF inflows have turned around to increasing (could be Bearish with public entering). And Insider Selling has increased to 39:1, and the U. of Michigan Confidence number at 98 is a 3-year high.
Here is the grid:
Mktsentiment. 1/19/2007......5Yr.HI........ LOW

DJIA ………. 12565nh...........12556...........7286
Nasdaq………. 2451............2502............1114
S&P500…….. 1430............1430............776
CBOE Equity put/call . 57.............87-5/04........46-1/03

VIX ………. 10.4.........44 9/02........10.0-11/06

ISEE-call/put ……. 139...........299-12/04.......82-4/02
(>200/Bearish)

McClel Osc.(+75/-100)……6...............91-5/04.........(81)-5/04
McClelSum.(+750/-1153nh) 692...........1568-6/03.......(726)-5/04

Newsletter Surveys:
Inv.Intel -Bull:…..…. ..50.5...........62.9-12/04......35-6/06
Bear:………… 22.1.........38.2-3/03.......16-6/03

AAII-Bull/Bear ……. 57.6/27.3.....n/a n/a
MarketVane Bulls…. 70......... 73..............24

Birinyi Blogger
Bull/Bear Poll.................21.6/45.9
Bullish%- ………74...............88 -2/04...... 46-8/04

With record numbers of dollars coming out of Money Market Funds, mostly into the crowded trade of short term bonds, anyone who has a minimal knowledge of covered call options and/or an interest in hedging stock market exposure might want to check out: brentleonard.com for an alternative strategy that is low-risk as well as highly rewarding. For those of you wanting more details and actual trading results, a new book is available for $14.95 at Amazon.com: Zero (IN)Tolerance


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