Ahead of jobs data/Sentiment/RRP falling fast/Rents/Other

Ahead of the jobs report and more evidence of the slowdown in hiring, the NFIB small business jobs components came out yesterday, ahead of the full report next week, and Plan to Hire fell 2 pts m/o/m to 16% which is the lowest since June and 1 pt from matching the lowest since the Covid shutdowns. 

Plan to Hire

Stock market sentiment has been giddy for a while but got extreme last week as measured by Investors Intelligence which was the perfect contrarian set up to the selling this week. Bulls rose to 57.1 from 56.9 while Bears fell to just 17.2 from 18.1. At 39.9, it's about the 40 spread that is considered euphoric. Yesterday AAII said Bulls were up 2.3 pts to 48.6 while Bears fell to 23.5, down by 1.6 pts. That spread is still very wide but not as extended it was just a few weeks ago. Over the last few weeks of 2023, the CNN Fear/Greed index got into the 'Extreme Greed' category and is back to 'Greed' at 74. Bottom line, strictly in the short term, it always seems to work that when the mood gets either euphoric or dour, the market is about to go in the other direction.