Counting Gold Longs as Sentiment Bulls

We certainly ain’t gonna solve the debate about the usefulness of sentiment surveys here today…but Erik at Market Anthropology asks an interesting question about how we’re reading them:

If the Investor Intelligence survey of the previous week found only 15.7% of advisors were bearish, and yet the majority of those advisors were still riding the strongest market sector, that just happens to be the bearish safehaven of gold and silver – isn’t it misrepresenting the underlying market sentiment?

Is being bullish on gold and silver, which to a man almost every long investor and trader is, a sign of overall bullishness in the traditional sense?  Is the survey meant to record gold longs as “bulls”?

Once again, the Fed-induced, liquidity-driven rally forces us to reinterpret yet another distortion of the old rules of engagement.

Source:

Winning (Market Anthropology)