Ok, the 5-day trailing average put:call ratio is giving another screaming sell signal (the one in early March was the first in ages to not result in any decline, just a 2-week consolidation). History shows that ignoring these signals is extremely perilous.
Indexindicators.com
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The 20-day average must be at an all-time low, though I don’t have the long-term data available:
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There is no longer any question that today’s market conditions resemble those seen at major bull market tops. Traders, analysts and the general public are extremely optimistic about the prospects for the stock market, but with a yield of under 2% and a macro environment that is still working off the hangover from a debt binge, the likelihood of a sustained advance is very low.
I continue to hear that the market is being propped up artificially by the Plunge Protection Team or Goldman or JPM or some such combination, and while I think it is likely that parties like these do try to manipulate its direction, I doubt very much that they can have any meaningful impact. The markets are global and an expression of social forces too large and wild to control.
Central banks publicly try time and again to manipulate floating currencies, and their efforts are always futile beyond little blips (just ask the BOJ, which once threw away $30 billion trying to supress the Yen, to no effect). Besides, history shows that markets have always been irrational, since long before the PPT. The very fact that so many people blame the PPT for the market’s rise goes to show that there have been lots of bears out there, and markets don’t peak until almost all of the bears have faded away.
Sovereign Speculator 