The Equity-Only Put/Call Ratio on the Chicago Board Options Exchange hit a very lofty level yesterday. For the uninitiated this means that many traders were betting that stocks are going to go much lower than today’s closing prices. However, the crowd is more often wrong than right and extreme readings like today’s usually mark turning points.
Jason Goepfert of SentimenTrader also reports today that when you look at the entire options market (not just the CBOE) the 10-day average of the equity put/call ratio is the highest ever recorded (back to June 2002). This is one indicator, then, suggesting that the bears may have overdone it for now.
LIV