Who is right?
from today's WSJ: "the new estimates provided by Lipper Analytical Services, and two companies that specialize in tracking fund-investor sentiment, show that in August investors pulled as much as $9 billion more from stock funds than they put into such accounts. The last time the fund industry experienced so-called net redemptions was September 1990, when investors yanked $520 million from stock funds, according to ICI. What's so interesting about the estimates provided by Lipper Analytical Services, AMG Data Services and TrimTabs.com is that it pokes a hole in the fund industry's mantra that investors don't react when the market topples. In fact, data from all three services show that investors pulled out quickly from the hardest-hit sectors. A. Michael Lipper, chairman of Lipper Analytical Services, said one interesting tidbit from his data is that the vast majority of the money that left stock funds stayed at the fund firms and moved into bond and money-market funds. "What I am sensing is that money isn't leaving the game -- it's staying in fund accounts if not the same fund houses, so that people intend for the money to come back in," Mr. Lipper said. He said fund investors are "making a market judgment not a product judgment."
On the other hand, I've read a couple of articles saying that insiders, especially in tech companies, have recently become big buyers of stocks.
Hint: look at the last time there was net redemptions, Sept. 1990. In retrospect, that was a very good time to be buying stocks. And a poor time to be selling.
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