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Pastimes : The Justa & Lars Honors Bob Brinker Investment Club -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Justa Werkenstiff who wrote (6663)	7/9/1999 1:01:00 PM
From: mister topes	Respond to of 15132

You have successfully and totally destroyed the phony thesis that the Investors Intelligence survey has lost any of its value as a component in analyzing investor sentiment. Well done!

To: Justa Werkenstiff who wrote (6663)	7/9/1999 2:33:00 PM
From: Kirk ©	Respond to of 15132

Justa, somehow words are getting twisted. let me try again. I guess the true measure of your hypothesis would be if the reading reached a ten week moving average of 70 plus and nothing happened in the market. I don't plan to test it. Not at all. This is not what I said. (or tried to say). I apologize for not being more clear. What I meant was Hilbert in a TV interview several months ago was asked about the sentiment of the market being so high back when it was last near 70 and was he expecting a correction or was he surprised that we hadn't had one yet. He said that his research showed that the newsletter writers were reporting one thing for the survey and telling their followers via their hotlines something different! I am not sure how many had hotlines 20 or 30 yrs ago... He said that his survey done by calling the hotlines himself showed that a significant percentage of the writers who were reported as bulls had actually reduced their positions via the hotline as they were expecting a correction and were trying to time it. I think he said something about the question is more for long term outlook and their portfolio recommendations via hotlines and email were more for short term timing. To me, this is not a hypothesis but a reporting of a measured fact. I think it also explains why we didn't get a correction in the early part of the year even though many were expecting one. My take is those that were likely to time the market on the high sentiment had already pulled out (perhaps using this sentiment indicator?) and the steam for a good correction was lost. If I remember correctly, many here were discussing trying to time this correction and were grateful for Bob recently being firm on the air that he expected to see new highs before he would call a Bear as it allowed them to get back to a proper weighting. regards Kirk out PS I have no doubt that the II sentiment number is an extremely good indicator to use as a tool for an overall picture, just my point was that it is different now in that there are hotlines where writers do short term adjustments and the actual number that reaches the II survey is probably not as accurate as it used to be as an indicator of sentiment.