Update

Here is an image of today's front page of The New York Times. The stock market hasn't made it into the headlines yet, but the story is at the top of page 1 right next to the headline. I think this just reinforces the conclusion I reached in this last post.

BUY say the New York Times and Time Magazine

Wow! The cover of the latest issue of Time Magazine is above this post. Black headlines bordered by red - the colors of danger and fear. The five myths cited on the cover are in my view not myths at all - but they are what Time thinks its readers believe and it is happy to reinforce those fears. The torn dollar whose pieces shrink in size moving from left to right (the direction of time progression) symbolize the shrinking values of stocks, real estate, and the US dollar, and the shrinking purchasing power of the dollar in times of high food and oil prices.

The New York Times chimed in Saturday with a stock market story on page 1, above the fold and just to the left of the headline column. "Stocks Plunge" is a pretty emotional description of what happened Friday and of the trend since May 2.

Take a look at the daily bar chart of the S&P 500 which goes back to the start of the bull market in March 2009. Notice the the S&P is above its rising 200 day moving average (red line), a fact that warrants the presumption that the bull market is still intact. Note too that the drop from the May 2 top is comparable to several other reactions seen within this bull market. In fact the market is still above the steep trend line (green dash line) I have drawn through the March 2009 and July 2010 lows. It is also above the April 2010 top.

Finally note that while the S&P is above its rising 200 day moving average it is well below its 50 day moving average (wiggly blue line), a typical buy configuration in a bull market.

Taken together these facts all point to a market which is offering aggressive contrarians a terrific buying opportunity. I think the S&P will be much higher 6 months from now and will probably reach the 1500 level before this bull market ends.

the rear view mirror

As the saying goes, gloom among investors and the public is now so thick you can cut it with a knife.

The chart right above this post shows the 30 year record of people's expectations that their income will increase during the coming year. For the past two years this percentage has been hovering at its lowest levels of the past 30 years. During this time of pessimism the stock market has steadily advanced.

Of more immediate interest is the middle chart. It shows the results of the weekly survey of investor sentiment conducted by the American Association of Individual Investors. The blue line is the weekly ratio of the number of bears divided by the number of bulls plus the number of bears. The higher the number the more bearish is the average investor. The five week moving average of this poll is depicted by the red line.

On a moving average basis AAII investor sentiment is the most bearish it has been during the past 18 months, and is even more bearish that at last year's July low which ended a 17% drop. This is remarkable because the S&P 500 has dropped barely 9% from its May high.

In fact the latest drop looks perfectly normal in the context of corrections within this bull market (blue dash rectangles in top chart). The 200 day moving average (red line in top chart) is rising strongly and the market is well above it. The S&P is also well below its 50 day moving average.

This combination of circumstances is an buying opportunity for the aggressive contrarian. In my view the aggressive contrarian would have assumed an above average long position near the April 2011 lows after dropping to only a normal long position last November. So while no new buying is possible I think this above average long position should be held. The S&P should soon move to new highs for the bull market.

the beat (of pessimism) goes on....and on...and......

Here is an image of the cover of the latest Economist. I love the line chart of a "crash" photoshopped onto Miss Liberty's tablet.

The Economist is a little late to the pessimists' party, but does contribute its bit to the chorus of naysaying. As I have repeatedly emphasized here, the pessimists are going to have to quiet down quite a bit before this bull market ends in the US, and indeed in the rest of the world too.

Gloom

Here are images of the front page from The New York Times for this past Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Friday's headline included the phrases "...Darkening Mood..." and "...Pessimism On Economy...". Saturday's headline informed us that "Bad Times Linger...". On Sunday at the top left of page 1 was a story headlined "Stimulus By Fed Is Disappointing..."

I think the New York Times is accurately reflecting (and reinforcing) the public mood at the present time. This is good evidence that no bullish investment crowd of any consequence has built up in the US stock market. Until the public gloom lifts substantially stock prices will only go higher.

opportunity for the aggressive contrarian

At the top of this post you will see an image of today's front page of The New York Times. This is the first time in quite a while that the stock market was mentioned in the headline. It is a very subdued mention. But it comes a month after the "Apocalypse Now" cover in Newsweek. And the S&P 500 is below its 50 day moving average (blue wavy line on the chart) and above a rising 200 day moving average (red wavy line).

The credit warning by S&P for the USA is complete nonsense. The US governments debt is denominated in dollars which the Federal reserve can print at will. There is no chance whatsoever that the US will default on its dollar denominated debt. Yet on the news yesterday the S&P 500 dropped nearly 2% within an hour of the announcement. Dumb selling if ever there is such a thing.

I think the aggressive contrarian should move to an above average long position from just an average one. Before anything resembling a bear market develops in the US stock market I think we shall see the S&P at 1500 and the Dow at 14000.

Apocalypse Now !!

Here is the cover of the latest edition of Newsweek magazine. I think it is a good reflection of the over-the-top reaction to the disaster in Japan. Irrational fears of radiation overdoses make people crazy. (Geiger counters for radiation detection have sold out of the stores in Paris!)

At the top of this post is a weekly chart of the Tokyo Nikkei stock market average. You can see the panic drop on the earthquake- tsunami - nuclear meltdown fears. The Japanese market has since recovered part of that drop. I think it is a buy at current levels.

The Newsweek cover is not something I would expect to see near a bull market top. I think that the current bull market has further to go - at least to the S&P 1400 level and probably to 1500 or so. This would put the Dow at new historical highs near 15,000.