Do Stock Index Put-Call Ratio Trend Reversals Anticipate Trend Reversals of the Index Itself?
January 13, 2009 - Sentiment Indicators
A reader inquired: “In some technical analysis papers I read that trend reversals of the 10-day [lagging] average put-call ratio anticipate S&P 500 index trend reversals. Do you see any predictive power?” In other words, does a change in the trend on an index put-call ratio (P/C) predict a general shift in investor sentiment? This question is fairly complicated from an analysis perspective, requiring definitions of “trend,” “trend reversal” and “anticipate.” We define “trend” as the normalized slope for the last ten trading days for both the S&P 500 index and the ten-day lagging average index P/C over the past ten trading days, normalizing by dividing the raw slope by the average value over the same ten trading days. We define “trend reversal” as a point at which the normalized slope crosses zero either from above or below (slope changes from positive to negative or negative to positive). We define “anticipate” as evidence of a systematic relationship between points at which the normalized slope of the ten-day average P/C changes sign and points at which the normalized slope of the S&P 500 index changes sign in the same direction. Using daily P/C data for the S&P 500 index from CBOE for the period 10/17/03 through 1/9/08 (1,317 trading days) and contemporaneous daily closing levels of the S&P 500 index, we find that: Keep Reading