Sentiment check/Claims jump in DC/Q1 GDP estimates need to be trimmed but future orders better

I forgot to mention stock market sentiment earlier and will right now as the AAII survey has gotten extremely bearish. Bulls fell to just 19.4, down 8.4 pts w/o/w and to the lowest since March 2023. Bears jumped to 60.6, the most since September 2022 around the market lows. In contrast, the less volatile, less fickle Investors Intelligence survey still has many more bulls than bears though a bit less so w/o/w. Bulls fell to 44.3 from 49.2 with all going to the Correction side as Bears dropped to 24.6 from 25.4.

The Citi Panic/Euphoria index is off the Euphoric highs but still deep in Euphoria land at .63. On the other hand, the CNN Fear/Greed index is at just 21, in Extreme Fear, down from 45 one week ago.

Bottom line, don’t just rely on one sentiment gauge for your guide as it seems really mixed right now. More reliable is when they all lean too much in one direction.

Bulls

Bears

Initial jobless claims for the week ended 2/22 jumped to 242k from 220k and that was 21k more than anticipated. We might have the influence of President’s Day but no way explains all of this (see below). The 4 week average rose to 224k from 216k. Continuing claims fell by 5k after a rise of 22k last week. They stand at 1.862mm, still around the highest since November 2021.