Posted By thestatedtruth.com on September 2, 2010

Key message here is…..  for liquidity ratios, equity fund portfolio managers are at an all-time record low of 3.4%, down from 3.8% in June. Tack on the fact that there are less shorts to be covered – being that the market peaked in April,  and short interest is now 4.3% of the S&P 500 market cap (in August 2008 it was 6%), well…..there’s not a whole lot of underlying fund-flow support for the stock market here.  Add to that negative seasonality and you have the picture.

New ICI reports just out:  We have just recorded the 17th consecutive weekly outflow from domestic equity mutual funds, and what’s worse for mutual funds’ depleted liquidity ratios, it is now accelerating, hitting a total of $4.3 billion, a more than 50% increase from last week’s $2.7 billion. YTD outflows have now hit $54 billion, as ever more capital is going into far safer fixed income instruments. As a reminder, here is what Rosenberg said on the issue yesterday: “As for liquidity ratios, equity funds portfolio manages have theirs at an all-time low of 3.4%, down from 3.8% in June. Tack on the fact that there are really not very many shorts to be covered – since the market peaked in April, short interest is 4.3% of the S&P 500 market cap (in August 2008 it was 6%) and there’s not a whole lot of underlying fund-flow support for the stock market here.” As for this being a contrarian signal, hopefully all those who see this as a buying opportunity can also find a way to make the now retiring baby boomers about 10 years younger and force them away from fixed income capital reallocation. 

In the meantime, no matter what the market does (and somehow it has been flat during the entire period of record redemptions: good to know someone is putting capital into stocks), on a short-term basis, nobody wants to touch it with a ten foot pole.

Categories: Charts and Graphs, Commentary, Economy, Finance, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street, World News
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