It's time to take a look at the sentiment indicators of the markets to see where things might lead into the Fall period. Summer has been a rollercoaster ride, with a huge month of June followed by highly volatile months of July and August. With another week to go before the Labor Day holiday, let's see if sentiment is turning/staying bearish.
The chart of the S&P 500 is still quite bearish. Certainly moving to all time highs a month ago was impressive, but there was no followthrough in August, and volatility just picked up. Whether it was China, trade news, tweets or the Fed there was plenty out there to make everyone worried. Fear/Greed Index sits at 18, which is in extreme fear mode (a composite of seven sentiment indicators).
The VIX had quite a week, falling sharply all week to the mid teens after a move above 23 the prior week. Market players seemed to believe the 'worst' was over, but then Friday the fear index shot up to near 20 on the worst market day in about a week. Since late July the VIX has risen and sustained elevated levels. The 20 ma is up around nineteen now, so the last month or so shows an average right around normal levels.
Put/call ratios were sliding early in the week but woke up and delivered some pain to the call buyers on Friday. Breadth was actually quite good until Friday, sporting a new buy signal midweek. However, the increase in decliners wiped that out. Polls have been showing the bulls are timid, the AAII sentiment survey shows a paltry 26% for the bulls. The bears clock in at 39.7%, a strong showing and deservedly so.
The extreme movements have come with strong turnover. I don't care what is being said by pundits and the media. There has been volume this month, and it's mostly been of the selling variety. Lastly, the oscillators continue to fluctuate around the zero line, but now may reach to an extreme reading within a few days. That might set up a buy signal eventually, but it would be short-lived if the chart does not improve.