Barron's Has Completely Diluted The 'Magazine Cover' Indicator

Barron's

This week, you'll inevitably hear some market pundit point to this week's bullish-looking Barron's cover as a contrarian bearish indicator for the stock market.

Magazine covers, like those published by Barron's, have been associated with market tops.

Unfortunately, the data is anything but scientific.

And Barron's has published so many bullish covers during this leg of the rally (see here, here, here, here, here, and here) that it has either destroyed magazines as a contrarian bearish indicator or completely diluted them as a straight bullish indicator.

Perhaps the magazine cover may have some use as an indicator of investor sentiment. But there are plenty of more robust alternative sources for that information. After all, the cover of a magazine is ultimately just the decision of an editor.