The five daily trailing TSI Worldwide Index through 7 January was a somewhat bullish 52.78, with North America a stronger 54.80 and the UK a neutral 50.77.
All three signals showed a strong rebound from the week before, up 43.9 per cent for North America, 34.5 per cent for the UK, and 22.9 per cent worldwide.
In part, this reflected favourable comparisons as institutional brokers and their clients on both sides of the Atlantic significantly reduced trading the second half of December, having locked in their profits for the year, causing sentiment to fall.
At 73.46 per cent, the percentage of new long stock trading ideas sent this past week to investment managers through the Trade Idea Monitor was also positive. Mid-60 per cent and higher is bullish; mid-50 per cent and lower is bearish.
For December the signal was 72.11 per cent and for all of 2009 it was 62.29 per cent. The last time the monthly average exceeded 70 per cent was December 2007.
Idea volume increased nearly seven-fold from seasonally lower levels seen at the end of last month.
Colin Berthoud, director at youDevise, says: "Sentiment for the year has started on a generally positive note around the world. The TSI and long percentage are bullish territory, and there’s bullish sentiment for seven of the ten industry sectors for which trade ideas are grouped.”
The data is based on stock trading ideas on more than 13,000 equities and ETFs, sent in real time through the Trade Idea Monitor by more than 4,300 professionals at 380 institutional brokerage firms, to their clients at approximately 190 investment managers around the world.
