Fund managers surveyed by BAML:
- High cash (5.7%)
- Bond weight highest in 10 yrs
- Still high equity underweight (1.8% std dev below mean)
- Within equities: US weight highest in 5 yrs, Europe lowest in 8 yrs (flight to safety)
One month equity only put/call (0.59) at a level where $SPX often runs into some turbulence. If it runs higher now, those gains usually (but not always) given back
This valuation chart from Bloomberg is making the rounds, showing that world equities are overvalued because they exceed world GDP, like 2007, 2017 and the start of this year
Here’s a slightly longer term perspective, back to 1980, which shows that it was also overvalued (by slightly more) in 1999
More than half of world equity market cap is just the US, so it’s a good barometer for the world. Here’s an even longer time series, back to 1950 from Doug Short
Breadth has been so bad that Summation (momentum) will drop -1000 tomorrow, just the 6th time in 20 years. Marked the low in 2019 and 2009, the initial low in 2002 and the start of July 2008 rally. It also meant nothing during the Oct 2008 panic
Summation keeps falling until turns positive; in other words, aside from Oct 2008, this is about the time when a series of accumulation days (>3:1) start. Last time was positive was Feb 20 ($SPX peaked Feb 19)
Two more Summation -1000 occurrences in 1998 and 1999. All except the last one (Dec 2018) gave way to a lower low in in the following weeks. Momentum takes time to work off
The only modern comparable to now is 1987
- fell 20% in one day, rose 15% the next 2 days, then returned to the low the following week
- Then rose 15% again and then retested the original low 6 weeks later
- It was up 25% a year later and back at prior highs 2 years later
Yesterday, worst 1 day drop for and in their history, and ATH closing high. Wild guess: that was ‘Panic’. ‘Discouragement’ requires time and a failed bounce. 1987 was similar to this (scroll up). Chart h/t @hmeisler