A BULL MARKET IN COMPLACENCY - PART I

-- SOURCE: 10-08-17 Lance Roberts  via RealInvestmentAdvice.com  - "Weekend Reading: Bull Market In Complacency" -- 

With the market recently breaking above 2500, there seems to be nothing to dampen the bullish exuberance. The recent run, which has largely been focused on areas in the market with the most sensitivity to tax cuts, has exploded over the last two weeks to record highs.

That explosion has also lead to a surge in the Market Greed/Fear Gauge which comprises different measures of market complacency and bullishness.

But the rush to chase performance can be clearly seen in the chart below of the S&P 600 index (small cap) which is now 4-standard deviations above the 6-month moving average.

Then there is the widely viewed CNN Fear/Greed Index.

 Of course, not surprisingly, with investors as optimistic and bullish as they can be equity to money market ratios are at extremes.

And “Dumb Money” is continuing to pile into markets as “Smart Money” is willing to sell positions to them.

After 9-years of a bull market, and pushing a 270% gain from the lows, investors have now decided it is now time to get back into the market. But that is the nature of a bull market, and particularly one that has entered into the final stages of long-term cyclical advance, where the last of the “holdouts” are sucked back into the game.

As we enter into earnings season, we once again enter into the “beat the estimates game,” where analysts act surprised that companies “beat” lowered estimates. In the short-term, these “beat rates” will provide support for the bullish case, but in the long-term, it is valuations and actual revenue growth that matters.

I agree with Doug’s sentiment yesterday:

  •  Massive injections of liquidity from the world’s central bankers
  • Passive investing (quants and ETFs) are now dominating markets (at nearly 40%) at the margin
  • Machines and algorithms, as well as many individual investors, are behaving differently as they are now programmed and conditioned to buy the dips.
  • 17% of the listed shares outstanding have been retired in corporate stock repurchases since the Generational Low in March, 2009.
  • More than half of the listed companies on the exchanges have disappeared over the last eight years

“We have a Bull Market in Complacency.” – Doug Kass