Professional Investors Are Insanely Bullish And Think The Dow Will Surge To 16,000
This week we saw our first real market rattling in awhile.
Commodities got absolutely hammered, and the renewed deflationary chill law to a series of violent up and down swings, resulting in the worst week in some time.
Also, US data is softening (and things aren't hot in Europe or China either).
And yet. At least as of very recently, big money managers are bullish on historical levels.
The stock market isn't the only thing that has set records this spring. Barron's semiannual Big Money poll of professional investors also is setting a record -- for bullishness, that is. In our latest survey, 74% of money managers identify themselves as bullish or very bullish about the prospects for U.S. stocks -- an all-time high for Big Money, going back more than 20 years. What's more, about a third of managers expect the Dow Jones industrials to scale the 16,000 level by the middle of next year, notwithstanding a dismal week of selling that left the blue-chip index at 14,547.51 on Friday.
This fits with conversations we've had in recent weeks. This past week aside, there's been a view that you had to own US equities, and that US growth was the only real game in town with everyone else flagging.