Stocks rallied again Thursday as the S&P 500 was up 0.7% and the Russell 2000 was up 1.72%. The S&P 500 is now up 3.45% year to date. That’s an amazing month of returns and we’re only almost halfway through January. The CNN fear and greed index is at 77/100 which is extreme greed.
This rally to start the year has been so amazing; I’m going to show many charts to get that point across. The chart below is the 30 day relative strength index in the S&P 500. This is from yesterday, so it’s a bit higher than indicated. The current 14 day RSI is 77.81. As you can see in the chart below, the S&P 500 has the most momentum in at least the past 4 years. It’s amazing to see that stocks are doing better than at any point in 2017 since that was in the 97th percentile in terms of risk adjusted returns. The terrible January in 2016 is a long distant memory that’s unthinkable in today’s market.
The chart below is also from yesterday. I almost never check the Bollinger bands, but when action is this extreme, it’s interesting to look at them. As you can see, the S&P 500 is outside of the top end of the Bollinger band which means the market is 2 standard deviations above average. That’s a strong sell signal in the near term.
The chart below is the Investors Intelligence sentiment index. As you can see, the bull to bear reading as of Tuesday was at the highest point since 1987. This run from being at almost the most bearish ever to being near the most bullish ever is the most remarkable run in the history of this survey. Generally, it doesn’t make sense to buy at the top, but keep in mind this is a near term indicator. To me, it means a correction could be coming. However, falling 5%-10% doesn’t mean a bear market will arrive as the economy and earnings look like they will be strong this year.
While the Investors Intelligence survey is very optimistic, the NDR sentiment poll makes it look like investors are even more euphoric. As you can see from the chart at the bottom, the NDR is at 78.9% which is a new record. It indicates that when investors are optimistic, it’s bearish and when they are pessimistic, it is bullish. The indicator goes back to 1995 and was last updated on Tuesday. When the index is above 66, it means stocks lose 2.89% in the next year and they rally 24.47% of the time. Based on the breakdown, you’d assume the higher it gets, the lower the returns and the lower the chances of a positive return. This looks like the chart showing how low unemployment equals bad returns. Almost every indicator I see says long term returns are going to be low.