“La sabiduría de la vida consiste en la eliminación de lo no esencial. En reducir los problemas de la filosofía a unos pocos solamente: el goce del hogar, de la vida, de la naturaleza, de la cultura”.
Lin Yutang
Cervantes
Hoy es el día más hermoso de nuestra vida, querido Sancho; los obstáculos más grandes, nuestras propias indecisiones; nuestro enemigo más fuerte, el miedo al poderoso y a nosotros mismos; la cosa más fácil, equivocarnos; la más destructiva, la mentira y el egoísmo; la peor derrota, el desaliento; los defectos más peligrosos, la soberbia y el rencor; las sensaciones más gratas, la buena conciencia, el esfuerzo para ser mejores sin ser perfectos, y sobretodo, la disposición para hacer el bien y combatir la injusticia dondequiera que esté.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES Don Quijote de la Mancha.
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3 de mayo de 2016
These Six Charts Show Investors Don't Have Faith in U.S. Stocks
Low-volatility ETF inflows and stubborn short interest levels
Valuations for defensive industries won't stop going up
While
$3 trillion has been added to equities in 11 weeks and the S&P 500
has recently been points from a record, you couldn’t tell from the
behavior of investors. From flows to exchange-traded funds to levels of
short interest and valuations for defensive stocks, bearish sentiment
rules. Here are six charts that show how skeptical investors still are.
Seeking Safety
Four
of the five most popular exchange-traded funds this year are ones
purporting to offer less risky investments than the stock market at
large, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Among them is the
iShares MSCI Minimum Volatility ETF, which has garnered $4.7 billion in
cash, more than any other fund. That compares with its three-year total
flow of $7.6 billion.
Buyers Go Missing
The only
type of investor buying stocks this year has been the companies that
issued them, according to Bank of America Corp. The bank’s
institutional, private and hedge fund clients were net sellers of
equities in the week ending April 25. On average, those clients have
sold a total $1.7 billion in stocks the past four weeks.
Short-Sellers Dig in Heels
The
rebound in the S&P 500 hasn’t done much to shake short-sellers of
their conviction. Even after wavering in March, the average short
interest as a percent of shares outstanding in U.S. stocks is at 4.1
percent, higher than at the start of the year and at one of the highest
levels of the bull market.
Mutual Fund Mess
It
doesn’t seem investors have regained faith in active managers since the
start of the year erased $3 trillion in equity value. They’ve pulled
money out of mutual funds for at least eight straight weeks, according
to Investment Company Institute. Can you blame them?
The Losing VIX Bet
It’s not hard to see why investors in the first two months of the year developed an affinity for ETFs that pay off when volatility increases. Why they’ve continued to add money to the funds as the S&P 500 slipped into its quietest period of the year is a bit more puzzling. Still, shares outstanding in one security, the VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX Short-Term ETN, remain at an all-time high.
Paying for Defense
Investors started buying
defensive industries at the beginning of the year and haven’t looked
back. The price-earnings ratios of consumer staples, utilities and
telecom stocks have risen faster in the past six months than any other
group in the index apart from energy and materials shares, whose
valuations have risen amid a drop in earnings.
