Poll Results: The Market by Halloween

Well our Halloween poll is closing, and with the highest probability in any 30 day period of the market closing within 5% one way or the other (anything >5% would signify tremendous volatility) only 35% of respondents believed we'd end up in this range +5 to -5%, leaving 65% predicting far stronger moves.

28% predicted a strong 5-10% higher, followed by 18% predicting a strong 5-10% lower; followed by the crash crew predicting >10% fall (11%), and super bulls >10% increase (5%)

I made the spreads on each option far too wide - i.e. asking for 5 to 10% gain in 1 month is very rare, but the least amount of people are thinking a huge move up so if mr market has his way a huge move up would be in the cards ;) Let's check back in a month. Will it be Trick OR Treat?

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As an aside - small caps have taken leadership over from the big caps - which is a healthy thing for the market, to see this bull run spread out from its narrow participation. However, while I can justify the international facing stocks being immune to US issues, it is much harder to make the case for the smaller caps. Perhaps its just a case of these small caps being washed out and funds having taken the large caps up so spectacularly in the short run they need new places to put their money. At this point the theme of performance chasing looks like its continuing - as people fall farther and farther behind the 8 ball by being conservative and doubting the market.