"I see you shiver with antici...pation"

So come up to the lab... And see what´s on the slab...

... In this month's thoroughly unscientific and statistically unsound...

Hedgething Instant Sellside Survey (HISS)

"Quick poll - do you expect the market to be UP in May... OR DOWN?"... asked to a variety of country specialists and pan-regional salestraders (mostly.) They could choose to answer with reference to any or all markets. So far, with 21 responses in...

UP = 10
N/C= 1
DN = 10

Pretty balanced, in aggregate, but HK and TW are 100% bulls, Korea is almost entirely bearish and pan-regional guys are just slightly -'ve. Two folks from Citi mentioned "Sell in May and go away."

For what it's worth, I'm getting slightly more bearish for May too.


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(Last month the expectation for April was 16:3:9 UP/nc/DN... WELL DONE sellside!)

Too exciting for words... Is the rally over? IS there more??

I don't read all the strategists' notes that cross my desk, so I have to trust my brokers (rarely advisable, I know) for what their top down views are saying... and the results are...

... all down to Goldman Sachs, who sadly have told me that "We never called the bear mkt rally so don't know how to 'end' it."

It's Bear Rally Bingo time!

Greg Newton from Naked Shorts has a great little Bingo card for us to play with right here... I would put it in here directly myself, but am still unclear of the protocol of cuttin'-and-pastin' from one blog to another. Anyway, watch CNBC etc and cross off all or a straight line of classic phrases such as "Already reflected in prices", "Fundamentally Sound" and "Putting in a bottom" etc. Good stuff for you to print out and keep, and to keep your new, cheap would've-been-a-Bear-Stearns-intern occupied.

Mine looks more like tic-tac-toe because we're running out of investment banks to play with... How about marking an X for "Bear Rally is Over" and an O for "Bear Rally Still Has Legs"... or even "It's all over, happy days are here again" (maybe that needs an OOO!)

Are you ready to play? No? Good! Here we go:

Over at Credit Suisse, strategist Andrew Garthwaite in his 2Q Global Asset Allocation strategy piece last week (16th) said that we are "Close to the end of a capitulation rally" but also that "We do not believe that this is the start of a new bull market, but rather that we are in the bottoming process" - somewhere within those 72 pages, he called for max another 5% upside in the markets this round, which we've since seen. Buzz!

Today we see that the highly regarded Teun Draaisma of Morgan Stanley, their European equity strategist, states quite clearly that the "bear rally is over" with MS's market timing indicators giving warning signs, sentiment indicators no longer bombed-out and some fundamental considerations such as the BOE's Fed-like move to accept mortgage collateral for gilts. Buzz!!

I can hardly contain myself!


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More from Mr Draaisma's note:

"In general we're set for a sustained period of weak economic growth in western economies as the credit crunch impact takes a long time to play out. Conversely, the growth dynamic in major emerging economies is underpinned by secular forces that should prove resilient. That means commodity prices are unlikely to ease significantly this year, which supports our positive bias to the oil, utilities and materials sectors."