Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Raymond James' Jeff Saut: "The World Is Profoundly Under-Invested in U.S. Stocks"

It was a month ago that we posted "Gavekal Research: Long Term, the U.S. is the Bet". One more occurance and we got us a meme!
[probably just in time for a pullback -ed]

From Yahoo's Breakout blog:

Like golfers and LeBron James, traders need short memories lest they become haunted by their failings in critical moments. Both life and trading are about living in the now, regardless of past humiliations.

And so it is for those who missed the stock market's screaming rally over the last two months. Those who did can't blame Jeff Saut. The Raymond James chief investment strategist went aggressively bullish the day after Thanksgiving. Since that time the S&P500 is up over 130-points, more than 11% and some 50-points above the levels at which the index started, and finished at in 2011.

Returning to today's tape, Saut has been looking for some sort of pullback to relieve our overbought condition. He's gotten something better as "all we've done is go sideways," albeit only since January 10th. It's good enough for Saut, given the relatively small number of traders caught off guard by market leap.

Saut notes that hedge funds are less than 50% long by some measures and in his view, "the world is profoundly under-invested in U.S. stocks." He has a laundry list of bullish catalysts, including Europe's ability to continue to "paper over" its growing list of woes takes the Continent off the table, at least for the time being....MORE, including video