September 29, 2008

Euphoria?

By Andrew Dimitri

This one just cracks me up, and I couldn’t resist sharing it. Of course, Barron’s share this particular piece of genius with the world on a regular basis, but they don’t elaborate too much on what’s in it, and from a cursory glance – I don’t blame them.

It’s called the CitiGroup Panic/Euphoria Model, and as the name suggests, it’s supposed to measure the overall market ‘feel’ in the US – from Panic to Euphoria.

Now, in the last few weeks, you’d have to be living in cave to reckon the US (and global) markets have been in anything other than extreme panic. After Bear Stearns earlier in the year, the distress has just gotten worse, and in the last two weeks we’ve seen the demise of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch being taken over by Bank of America, the largest insurer in the world, AIG, requiring a government bailout to the tune of $85 Billion, and the US Government, Treasury and the Fed stepping in to take dramatic action to stop the entire US financial system from falling into a black hole.

The panic is not only obvious in just about every technical measurement in existence, but it’s so palpable you can nearly feel it walking around the streets! In summary, it doesn’t get much worse than this when it comes to panic.

So, assuming every reasonable person in the known world agrees that there has been quite a bit of panic in the last few weeks, one has to wonder why the Citigroup Panic/Euphoria Model looks the way it does.

Here’s how it works: A reading of 0 means the feeling is considered neutral – neither overly positive or negative among market participants.

So where is it now that there is blood on the streets? Well, it’s currently sitting at around 0.4, and while that’s not the heights of euphoria, it’s pretty darn close.

(click on image to enlarge)

marketsentiment 300x170 Euphoria?

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