Im Re-Test lag die letzte große Chance, nicht im eventuell nächsten downmove.
Was der "Entscheidungspunkt" dazu schreibt ist bearshit.
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The Worst is Over
by David Yu
Now that spring has sprung and the Dow has sprinted more than 1,200 points from what I've identified as the technical market bottom on January 22, we've begun to hear the chant that the worst is over. I thought this all sounded too familiar, so I went back to the beginning of October 2007 and found similar "The Worst is Over" assessments from Wall Street pundits as well as former Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan. And, just days later, the market began unraveling. The Dow went on to lose more than 2,500 points.
I've also found that, back in October 2007, institutional investors shared no similar bullish sentiment as the rest of the market. The State Street's indicator of institutional investor's risk appetite continued to decline in October. It slid from the high of 117.1 in August 2007 all the way down to the low of 65.3 in December 2007 with little hesitation (see Chart 1 below). And, after 3 consecutive months of uprise, now this indicator had just turned lower again this month.
Unlike other survey-based sentiment indicators that rely on investors' "feelings" of future price expectations, the State Street Investor Confidence Index is a quantitative measure of the actual levels of risks contained in investment portfolios. It analyzes the actual buying and selling patterns of institutional investors. It reflects changes in institutional investors' portfolios in real time, as they happen, rather than investor's feelings that may be used as a deferred contrarian indicator.

Chart 1
Incidentally, Chart 2 below shows European institutional investors confidence level, which had fallen to 76.8 this month. That's the lowest level since 2005. It would appear that neither North American nor European institutional investors believed that the worst was really over. They had become less willing to allocate their portfolios to equities. In fact, they may've been building their short positions on the rallies.

Chart 2
Of the three major indices, the Nasdaq had the largest gains over the past two months. And, the volume ratio of the Long to Short Ultra ProShares of the Nasdaq 100 ETF had surged to new highs not seen since the inception of the funds (black circle on Chart 3 below). The rise of the Ultra Long ProShares (QLD) to the Ultra Short ProShares (QID) ratio, however, means anything but bullish.
When the Nasdaq 100 (NDX) advanced more than 30% from March to the end of October in 2007, the long-short ratio of the Ultra ProShares had maintained mostly just under 15%. This low level of accumulation of the Long ProShares means low level of hedging against short positions. Institutional investors use these Ultra ProShares, which seeks to double the returns of the underlying indices, to hedge against their long and short positions. Since the market had generally been moving higher, this ratio hadn't moved past 20% till the final week of November.
After the escalation to November highs, this long-to-short ratio moved sideways from the beginning of 2008 till it broke out of the 25%-40% range on April 11. And, on April 15, it rocketed past 50% for the first time since the inception period. The rise of the ratio means the accumulation of the Ultra Long ProShares, which means the buildup of short positions, notwithstanding recent buying pressure that had pushed the major indices to the highest levels not seen since mid January.

Chart 3
So, who've been pushing the price higher? Perhaps the individual investors. According to the AAII (American Association of Individual Investors) survey, the bearish sentiment of individual investors had dropped to the lowest level last seen in October 2007 (see Chart 4 below). Since these types of feeling-based surveys can generally be used as contrarian indicators, low level of bearish sentiment may be construed as the potential market top. And we all know what had happened after October 2007.

Chart 4
Whenever the market had a double-digit rally in a hurry, it's imperative to be reminded that the fiercest rallies always happen in a bear market. And, in all likelihood, we're indeed in a long-term bear market because the housing market's in a long-term bear market. The housing market and its ancillary industries had been the major sources of employment and Wall Street's prosperity for nearly a decade. Without the backbone of the housing market, the economy will never be the same. And, without the mortgage derivatives, banking institutions' profit margins will never be the same.
Thus, when the market shoots up in a bear market, it makes it a bear market rally, not a bull market correction. You buy the dips in a bull market, but you sell the rallies in a bear market. And, that seems to be what institutional investors have been doing. For an instance, on a relatively higher volume back-to-back upday like last Thursday, when the S&P 500 gained twice as much as the previous day, large cap (SPY), mid cap (MDY), and small cap (IWM) ETF's across the board had all experienced negative cash flows.
The ratio of the dollar value of uptick trades to the value of downtick trades of SPY, MDY, and IWM were all under 1 (see Chart 5 below). Blue color bars indicate much greater disparities on large trades between institutional investors (block trades). The block trade ratio for the S&P 400 mid-cap ETF, in particular, was zero, which virtually means just selling and no buying interests from institutional investors.

Chart 5
Here we appear to have institutional investors going one way and individual investors going the other way. Who's more likely to be on the right tract? O.K. it's a rhetorical question. In any case, perhaps the worst is not over yet.
By Krishna Guha in Washington, Javier Blas and Chris Giles in London and Ralph Atkins in Athens
Published: May 8 2008 21:44 | Last updated: May 8 2008 21:44
Global inflation has re-emerged as a major threat to the world economy, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday in a stark warning that marked an abrupt change of tone from its emphasis on the risks to growth.
John Lipsky, IMF deputy managing director, said “inflation concerns have resurfaced after years of quiescence” due to soaring energy and food prices. Mr Lipsky said global growth was slowing but headline inflation was “accelerating”.
The IMF warning came as crude oil prices hit a record of almost $124 a barrel, up 99 per cent in the past 12 months, and customers scrambled to take out insurance against prices rising above $200 a barrel.
In an indication the commodities boom may not be the bubble imagined, Mr Lipsky said the forces pushing prices up “appear to be fundamental in nature” – and these were being amplified by lower US interest rates and the dollar’s decline.
He was “optimistic” that there would not be a repeat of the early 1970s, when increasing energy prices ushered in a period of rising inflation expectations and accelerating inflation, but he said this risk “cannot be discarded out of hand”.
Mr Lipsky said policymakers must respond aggressively to any sign of rising inflation expectations “lest the impressive gains in global stability attained in recent years be sacrificed”.
The IMF’s inflation warning was reinforced by European central bankers, as the European Central Bank and Bank of England left interest rates unchanged despite increasing signs of economic weakness.
The eurozone was “experiencing a rather protracted period of high annual rates of inflation”, Jean-Claude Trichet, ECB president said. It was “imperative” that the households and companies did not think inflation rates were normal and raise prices and wages accordingly.
The Bank of England, rejected calls from representatives of the increasingly sickly housing market for lower interest rates, maintaining its rate at 5 per cent. The monetary policy committee felt the increasing tension between rising inflation and lower growth did not allow it to cut rates twice in successive months.
The majority on the MPC are cautious cutting interest rates aggressively as inflation is moving increasingly above the Bank’s 2 per cent target would send the wrong signal about its determination not to allow higher inflation to become ingrained again in British society.
The switch in emphasis from the IMF from growth to inflation follows the latest surge in the price of oil.
Mr Lipsky suggested part of this could be due to monetary policy and exchange rates. He said IMF research suggests low interest rates effect commodity prices “above and beyond the traditional effect of increased demand” while the decline in the dollar since 2002 was responsible for about $25 of the increase in the oil price.
The IMF warned food prices would stay high for the foreseeable future.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/...dd-82ae-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
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