"POOR STANDARDS-500":

Thanks to S&P, et.al., critical mis-rating of debt securities, the gloom still hangs over the global Financial sector, waiting to see if it's going to bend or break, as we head into the dangerous season, where the foreign tourists go home with their remaining dollars and our gov't wraps up its fiscal year. Still, the Sentiment Indicators remain quietly regressing to the mean after the extreme bearishness, and Tom McClellan sees the M2 offering liquidity to drive the market further up.
The Inv.Intell. survey, even more inverted to the bear side, agrees, as do the Specialists' shorting and short interest ratio, which dropped on both the NYSE and Nasdaq this week.
CEO legal Insider Selling did double last week, however (probably sending their kids to college).

Here are this week's numbers:

MktSentiment. 8/15/2008 Prev. Week.....5Yr.HI......LOW

DJIA ………. 11659……….11734………..14093............7286
Nasdaq………. 2452…………2414…………2810.............1114
S&P500…….. 1298…………1296………….1561………..776
CBOE Eq. put/call …70…………….67……………..92-1/08….....46-1/03

VIX ………. 19.6…………..20.6…….…….44… 9/02 bu..10.0-7/05 br

McClellan Osc……….35………….44……………91-5/04 br...(-81)-5/04bu
McClelSum……….…-409……….-587…………..1568-6/03.......-1187
Newsletter Surveys:
Inv.Intel -Bull:…..…31.8………….34……….…63 (12/04br)......35-6/06bu
Bear:………… 45.5..……….43.6…..………… 38.2-3/03.......16-6/03

AAII-Bull/Bear ……42.9/39.0……35.6/42.4……..n/a n/a
IBD: Short Interest- 14…………..13.8…………15.0………. 4.0
Public/NYSE Spec.-…15.9……….17.6…….….21.9bl…………..1.0br
Bullish%- …………50…………47…….…88 -2/04br.....19bu
*Insider corporate sellers.16:1……8:1………..97………….4
Mutual Fund Inflows: (.3B)
ETF Inflows: 4.2B
Money Market Inflows: 10B