UH-OH: The New Barron's Cover Looks Bullish

In the pantheon of odd market indicators, the Barron's magazine cover is probably one of the more unreliable contrarian indicators followed by many (See here, here, here, here, here, and here).

So, don't be surprised on Monday when a market pundit appears on CNBC or Bloomberg TV and invokes the new bullish cover as a screaming sell signal.

This week's Barron's cover story features the bullish results of the periodical's "Big Money" poll.

"It's going to take a lot more than the past month's 5%-plus selloff in stocks for America's money managers to change their upbeat tune," Barron's Jack Willoughby writes. "That's what they've been telling Barron's in the past two weeks, ever since 59% of participants in our latest Big Money poll said they were bullish or very bullish about the outlook for U.S. stocks through the middle of 2015. That's up from 56% in our spring survey, but below last fall's bullish reading of 68%."

Willoughby writes that most managers expect a 10% correction in stock prices within 12 months. However, that's expected to be just a blip in the already 5-year old bull market.

"Based on their mean forecasts in the Big Money poll, the bulls see the Dow Jones industrials topping 18,360 by the middle of 2015, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index hitting 2173," Willoughby continued. "While their targets, which imply a gain of about 12% for the Dow and 15% for the S&P 500, might seem aggressive after last week's rout, their commitment to U.S. equities remains intact."

While it's possible to cherry-pick a few bullish covers that coincided with market tops, a bullish magazine cover is arguably the silliest reason to sell your stocks.

Read more at Barrons.com.