Last Week Sentiment Report

As I said, I am subscribed to a weekly sentiment report reporting each Tuesday. The company sort of averages the research ideas of different investment firms to predict where the market is going. I thought I would share the one from last week (last Tuesday):

FIRST COVERAGE WEEKLY SENTIMENT (April 7, 2009)

First Coverage Market Sentiment: Bearish	First Coverage Index: 48.7	Weekly Change: 0.0%	Sell-Side Certainty: Negative
Bullish Industries(2)	Neutral Industries (6)	Bearish Industries(2)	Weekly Sentiment Change
	Basic Materials
	Consumer Goods		Bearish
	Consumer Services
		Financials
Health Care
	Industrials		Bullish
		Oil & Gas	Bearish
Technology
	Telecommunication		Bearish
	Utilities		Bearish

The Pause that Refreshes!

Darth Vader vs. Luke Skywalker. Batman vs. the Joker. And now..the Bulls vs. the Bears.

Epic battles don’t get any better, bigger or more meaningful. And, like most epic battles, this one is destined to go down in three acts.

A quick refresher:

Act 1: Market devastation, bears win.

Act 2: March rally and a bottom ‘potentially’ called, bulls win.

And now, instead of in Act 3, we seem to be in the intermission.

Two months ago we saw the sell-side get increasingly bullish. Then over the last few weeks, we’ve seen them lose their enthusiasm for the rally. And over the last week...nothing. The bulls on the sell-side seem to finally be balanced against the bears on the sell-side, and both appear to be placing their stake in the ground and refusing to budge until this market ultimately declares one side the winner.

Bears are comforted by fundamentals, including another 663,000 lost jobs and unemployment that is heading towards 10.0%. Bulls continue to believe that sound decisions by global leaders, lots of liquidity, and faith that better days are always predicted by the market before they are seen by the economy lead to the right path to follow. Either way, nature abhors a vacuum and the market abhors indecision, so a victor should emerge sooner than later.

Since the sell-side hasn’t moved at the macro level since last week, as we head into earnings season, it would be worthwhile to see the stocks that are the most bullish and bearish, and also those seeing the greatest change in sentiment, bullish or bearish.

Bullish Rank	Symbol	Name
1st	MSFT	MICROSOFT CP
2nd	SYNA	SYNAPTICS INC
3rd	BKE	BUCKLE INC
4th	CVS	CVS CAREMARK CP
5th	APEI	AMERICAN PUB. EDU.

Bearish Rank	Symbol	Name
1st	GRMN	GARMIN LTD
2nd	WY	WEYERHAEUSER CO
3rd	BBT	BB&T CP
4th	SRX	SRA INTERNATIONAL
5th	DNDN	DENDREON CORP

Greatest Bullish Shifts Week / Week Symbol	Name	Industry
SYNA	SYNAPTICS INC	Technology
CSGN	NULL	Financials
CM	CANADIAN IMP BANK	Financials
HNZ	HEINZ H J CO	Consumer
ARD	ARENA RESOURCES	Oil & Gas

Greatest Bearish Shifts Week / Week Symbol MON	Name MONSANTO	Industry Consumer
CNQ	CDN NAT RES	Oil & Gas
SKT	TANGER	Financials
WFC	WELLS FARGO	Financials
VMW	VMWARE, INC.	Technology

Until next week …