Mareseatoatsanddoeseatoatsbutlittlelambseativy.

Monday, January 05, 2004

From Hussman Funds site.

Investor's Intelligence reports that “sentiment readings are the worst since 1987 for advisors, and now just below the worst ever for insiders. Insiders are now selling just under seven shares for every share bought.” Investment advisory bullishness has been above 50% and bearishness below 25% for thirty-five consecutive weeks. In 1987, bullishness was above 50% for twenty-three weeks, and even those were not consecutive. The percentage of industry groups in uptrends is an extremely overbought 92.8%.

That strong uniformity of industry uptrends confirms what we observe from our own measures of market action, and is an indication that investors remain willing, for now, to take speculative risk. This speculative merit - alone - is why we continue to hold a generally positive (though moderate) exposure to market risk. However, given that market action is also extremely overbought, we also hold a small “contingent” position in put options (a fraction of 1% of assets) sufficient to hedge another 20-25% of our market exposure in the event of an abrupt decline.

In short, the market continues to have a favorable, but increasingly precarious speculative tone.

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