Thursday, March 5, 2009

More on Sentiment Tools Not Working

Just a few observations from one of the chat rooms I follow.

Bill Volker posted this put/call chart and noted that for a new low in a raging bear market, nobody seems to be buying puts. I added the 10-day average.

Of course, a put/call ratio depends on calls, too, and we can also comment that nobody is buying calls. Or EVERYBODY is buying puts AND calls. Basically, the chart is not terribly meaningful since we don't know if both sides have given up or both sides are vigorously making their cases.

But regardless of what the neutral read is, it still is interesting how there is no panic in this indicator.

Chris Carolan countered with:
1- Nobody has any money
2- People are hedging using other methods.

Mike Moody added that VIX futures are a better hedge than options.

So, we can probably toss options based indicators into the "maybe" bucket with everything else.

3 comments:

Vince Stanzione Financial Trader said...

Many are now able to use Inverse/Bear ETFs these were not around a few years ago and the only way most could go short was by buying put options, Even the pros are using short funds, John Paulson held SKF to short financials.
Regards, Vince Stanzione

Ron Sen, MD, FCCP said...

Mean reversion (my favorite approach ordinarily) simply hasn't worked when the downward trend is so strong.

Weekly charts have been the lighthouse in the storm.

Michael Kahn said...

Just like I believe that trend channels are trading ranges with slopes, so too do I believe mean reversion be to a trend instead of a single price. In other words, mean reversion may still work but the "mean" continues to fall.