Faith in equities seems to be in short supply today, despite flat prices for crude oil and a good earnings report from B of A. This speaks poorly for the sentiment that currently prevails on Wall Street, especially since there has been no demonstrably negative news today. How can this be, when the news this morning has been mostly positive?The Leading Economic Indicators were slightly bearish this morning, but no more than expected, and they were better than last months' readings. What gives? This is one reason why I prefer to ignore news events, because it doesn't always provide an accurate reading of the moment-by-moment sentiment. If I were to venture a guess, I suspect that last weeks rally was more due to short covering that was artificially imposed the SEC's naked short rule, than enthusiastic buying. Now that the shorts have been shaken out of the market, there are no buyers to keep stock indexes moving higher. Sentiment still remains bearish!
