Savita Subramanian and Wall Streets

Wall Streets: With so many market experts predicting that the S P 500 /quotes/zigman/3870025/realtime SPX -0.29% is set for a 20% slide, and the small-stock Russell 2000 will fare even worse, its easy to ignore one closely watched investor sentiment measure that keeps flashing a bright buy signal. , according to Market Watch. Given the contrarian nature of this indicator, we remain encouraged by Wall Streets ongoing lack of optimism and the fact that strategists are still recommending that investors significantly underweight equities, at 51% vs. a traditional long-term average benchmark weighting of 60-65%, Savita Subramanian, the firms head of U.S. equity and quantitative strategy, wrote in a research report published Friday. The Sell Side Indicator would give a sell signal when strategists raise their recommended stock weighting to 66%. Bloomberg The bad news bears are back in town, and that could be good news for U.S. stock market bulls. Bank of America Merrill Lynchs proprietary Sell Side Indicator the average recommended equity allocation of Wall Street strategists puts Wall Streets bullishness at a 13-month low. In fact, pessimism is even more extreme than at the market lows of March 2009. In true contrarian fashion, this is positive for U.S. stocks , BofA Merrill says to the tune of a 22% total return over the next 12 months. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.