Sentiment Indicators

In The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, James Surowiecki identifies and discusses the three conditions necessary for a crowd to make good group decisions. Applied to the stock market, good decisions means stock prices that reflect the true values of underlying assets. As depicted in the figure below, the three conditions are: Keep Reading

Should traders lean with or against the crowd? In their May 2002 paper entitled “Investor Sentiment and the Near-term Stock Market”, Gregory Brown and Michael Cliff from investigate whether investor sentiment offers any valid trading signals. They find that: Keep Reading

Should we pay attention whenever pollsters issue new consumer confidence numbers? In their October 2002 paper entitled “Consumer Confidence and Stock Returns”, Ken Fisher and Meir Statman examine whether consumer confidence, as defined and measured by the Conference Board and the University of Michigan, predict the stock market? They determine that: Keep Reading