A couple of weeks ago I wrote about seeing constructive long-term sentiment readings. To expand on that post, I offer 10 contrarian reasons to be long-term bullish on the stock market. The first three I already mentioned from my previous post:

10 The buy-and-hold discipline is dead and market timing lives. Financial planners tell their clients to build an asset allocation plan and to stick with it - but there are numerous signs that individual investors are abandoning their buy-and-hold discipline. Barry Ritholtz pointed out that AAII data shows that individual investor stock allocations are at levels consistent with previous bear market lows. CNBC recently aired a segment on the Death of buy and hold as an investing discipline.

On the other hand, Mebane Faber's market timing system is shooting the lights out compared to a buy-and-hold strategy, with returns at all-time highs comparable to 1974 bear market low levels. These results are not surprising given the terrible environment for equities.

9 Stock prices are just plain beaten up. Bloomberg reports that “(t)he worst annual decline in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index since 1931 has dragged down every industry in the benchmark gauge and 96 percent of its stocks.” Bespoke recently reported that the spread of stocks from their 200 day moving average is consistent levels not seen since the Great Depression.

8 Speculation is dead. Trading volume on pink sheet stocks, the most speculative in the US market, are now moribund (see this Minyanville article).

7 NBER declares that the recession is here. As NBER will themselves admit, they would rather be right than timely. As experienced investors know, a good time to buy equities occur when NBER declares a recession because the market is forward looking and economic indicators are backward looking.

6 Mr. Market has gone through most of the stages of “grief”.