Has sentiment bottomed out?

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Good morning. Chinese language officers acknowledged yesterday that they might do with out US agricultural and power imports, ought to tariffs stay in place — one other sign that Beijing shouldn’t be backing down within the face of US stress, and that we’re coming into into a large recreation of “trade war chicken”. Who do you assume will blink first? E mail us: robert.armstrong@ft.com and aiden.reiter@ft.com. 

How dangerous is investor sentiment? 

One of the best cause to purchase US equities proper now could be that just about everybody thinks you shouldn’t. Once we instructed in yesterday’s letter that there have been some — certified — causes for optimism about US markets, we obtained lots of responses like this one, from a commenter going by “general assembler”:

A weirdly optimistic take . . . The large downside right here is that unthinkable issues with devastating penalties are more and more more likely to occur. Demolishing the worldwide commerce system is one factor, however what about US hyperinflation (if Trump will get his manner on low rates of interest), US default (the Maga crowd would love the thought of not paying their hard-earned {dollars} to any pesky foreigners in rates of interest), and a ‘classic’ warfare of conquest?

The oldest rule in investing is to purchase when pessimism reigns. So when Monetary Instances readers are speaking critically about de-globalisation, hyperinflation, default and warfare multi functional sentence, certainly it’s time to purchase? 

It’s not simply the FT feedback part. The venerable American Affiliation of Particular person Traders sentiment survey is as unfavourable because it ever will get. The chart beneath makes use of a three-month rolling common of the survey’s bull-bear unfold. The AAII goes again 38 years, and it has been as little as it’s now solely as soon as, throughout the 1990 recession. The decision-outs present the following one-year return on the S&P 500. When the AAII hits lows like this, it’s nearly at all times a superb time to speculate.

Brian Belski of BMO Capital Markets is the Wall Road strategist who’s banging the desk hardest on horrible sentiment as a purchase sign. “The whole thing has become so binary — we’ve all decided we’re going to have a recession,” he says. In conversations with purchasers in Europe and Canada, the tone is comprehensively unfavourable on the US, he says. “The best [contrarian] indicator of all is sitting in front of clients and looking them in the eye and seeing how negative they are . . . they love the idea of the end of American exceptionalism . . . it’s nothing but emotion driven.”

Belski sees one other good contrarian indicator in downward earnings estimate revisions for the following full yr (that’s, 2026). Analysts revisions are actually overwhelmingly unfavourable. Belski argues that when this has occurred traditionally, consensus has overshot to the draw back and subsequent returns are usually above common. His chart: 

Time to load up, then? It’s not fairly that easy. 

First, there’s the little downside of March 2008, when the AAII hit a deep low after the S&P fell nearly 20 per cent. The index went on to lose one other 40 per cent over the following 12 months. So sentiment shouldn’t be an ideal opposite indicator. Throughout a generational disaster, it’s no assist (that stated, the following low within the survey, a yr later, nailed the market’s backside and was top-of-the-line occasions to purchase shares ever).

Subsequent, it’s price noticing that just about all the low factors in sentiment within the above chart got here after the markets had declined very sharply from current highs. This was true in 1990, 1998, 2002, 2008, 2009 and 2022. With the market off solely about 10 per cent from February highs, it’s not fairly true proper now. So perhaps buyers ought to watch for an terrible sentiment sign confirmed by an even bigger market decline?

Associated to that, whereas some retail buyers are moaning to survey takers, others (or probably the exact same ones?) are busy shopping for. In response to VandaTrack, retail patrons purchased the dips aggressively within the early days of this month, because the purple columns on this chart reveals:

Lastly, broader measures of sentiment that embody not solely survey knowledge but in addition market indicators corresponding to quick curiosity, margin debt and the put/name ratio don’t look as horrible because the AAII does. Right here is our favorite, Citi’s Levkovich index, which has fallen quick however solely to the center of its historic vary: 

We’d actually really feel extra comfy with the buy-on-bad-sentiment argument if it was confirmed by a deeper decline and market-based indicators, and if the impulse to purchase the dip had been totally stamped out. We’ll wait till it’s a little darker earlier than we begin anticipating the daybreak.

That stated, we’re not as involved concerning the March 2008 downside — the chance that we’re on the cusp of such a foul catastrophe that sentiment is not a helpful indicator. We imagine this for a fairly particular cause. The market disruptions of current weeks, in our view, are the product of three issues: demandingly high-risk asset valuations, a difficult fiscal/financial/inflationary backdrop and incoherent financial coverage from the Trump administration.

Barring a recession or market rout, the primary two are more likely to stay in place. On the third, we’re reassured — if that’s the proper phrase — by the realisation that the Trump financial staff merely shouldn’t be that dedicated to its personal ill-considered insurance policies. To date, when challenged by the markets or the polls, the administration’s response has been to fold its playing cards. It folded on Chinese language electronics tariffs, it folded on “reciprocal” tariffs on the remainder of the world, then folded on Donald Trump’s threats to fireside Fed chair Jay Powell. All of this within the face of average market resistance. It’s potential, relating to extraordinarily excessive tariffs on China, Trump will maintain the road, nevertheless painful the response from markets and the financial system. However we’re betting he received’t. 

One good learn

Specificity.

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