Am not familiar with history of COT's dependability vis-a-vis NDX, but, if I read those charts correctly, they don't compensate for lag: As I understand it, COT data is delayed a week, and comes out only weekly, so, e.g, the "daily" reading for 12/01/00 would really be a weekly reading for the week ending 11/24/00, and so on. Which MIGHT suggest the Cs were long just before the top in the NDX, and were already screaming into short-land right before the plunge.
That S&P number remains rather astonishing. Unless there's some alternative explanation (a subject apparently of lively discussion among COT-followers), the Cs sure seem to have been betting (if that's the right word, as the Cs are not considered "gamblers") that the S&P was going to follow the Nas. For all I know, they've been more than happy to grab a big chunk of sure thing on a relatively minor drop, rather than expecting a major win on a major plunge. For all any of us know, they've already started covering - though it sure would seem they'd have a long way to go. |
