There Are Some Positive Data Points

It seems much of the news being reported on the market and the economy lately is falling in the negative category. With both the S&P 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index down a little over 5% in the month of May and with only one trading day remaining, highlighting the negative news might be somewhat attributable to confirmation bias. Nonetheless all the news is not negative.

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Investors Increasingly Bullish On Stocks, But Outflows Continue From Equity Funds

This past week saw the AAII individual investor bullish sentiment move higher to 43.1%. This pushed the bullish reading above its average reading of 38.5% but still below the overly bullish +1 standard deviation level of 48.3%. The bullishness reading has been somewhat volatile of late resulting in the 8-period moving average remaining below 40% at 36.9%.

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Hiring Continues To Lag Growth In Job Openings

In the recent Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, the level of openings increased by 346,000, while job hires feel 35,000. Openings remain at a high level but began to decline starting in December last year. The fact hiring level is lagging the growth in openings is a sign companies are having a difficult time finding qualified individuals to fill open positions. This hiring difficulty is showing up in the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index survey. The most recent NFIB report noted, "22% of owners cited the difficulty of finding qualified workers as their Single Most Important Business Problem, only 4 percentage points below the record high." This strength in the employment area is one sign of a healthy business environment.

Equity Fund And ETF Flows Remain Negative

Year to date combined mutual fund and ETF fund flows show investor continue to be net redeemers of equity funds, both international and U.S. domestic equities in the amount of $30.5 billion. Conversely, investors have been net purchasers of bond or fixed income investments. The flow data shown below is reported by the Investment Company Institute with a one week lag with last week's report representing data for the week ending April 24, 2019. Lipper reports fund data as well and they show continued equity fund redemption for the week ending May 1, 2019 in the amount of -$1.8 billion.

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