Poll results

There is still some time left on the poll - mainly because blogger won't let me cut it off early - but the results are obvious. The overwhelming majority of respondents do not think the October rally was the start of something bigger. And almost 2/3 of them are in the bear market rally camp.

While far from a scientific survey, we still can draw a few things from it. First, we start with the bias of the survey towards the bear side. Why do I say that? Because I have doubted this rally and fought the bull market before it. It is safe to assume that the majority of the readers who continue to come back to this blog and to my other writings share my views or at least are sympathetic to them. I am pretty sure Cramer and Kudlow do not read me (for many reasons, I am sure).

That leaves us with what I think is a good read on the sentiment of people who actually know what they are doing and are not just toeing the company line to push stocks. (Note, it is not towing the line, as in pulling it. It is more like keeping in order with ones toes on a straight line drawn on the floor - conforming).

This is not a media survey where 50% bears means the public is panicking. It is closer to a smart money read, in my view. And I back that up with similar results on the Intrade system where they trade futures on all sorts of things as politics - and where the market will be next year.

So, fellow market enthusiasts, as a group we did not drink the kool aid. We did not believe Greece would play ball and they didn't.

Of course, we are only two days removed from the peak of a massive market rally and I am not foolish enough to say that it is down, down, down from here. One news story that Greece is behaving and up we go. One report that QE4 is here and up we go. Or that we got bin Laden. 

Oh wait, we did - on May 2. And what was special about that in the market? Oh yeah, it was the very day the Dow scored it 2011 high.

In other words, don't take anything for granted.