If you believe it's time to sell, you're in a pretty lofty club
Many investors, in fact, have taken up the bearish cause, yanking money from U.S.-focused stocks and shifting it overseas. By one measure, emerging market equity funds are seeing their largest inflows ever of investor cash. Bonds are raking in money, reflecting the pervasive risk-aversion dominating retail investor sentiment.All of this, of course, is the perfect setup — for a market rally.

Despite a decidedly mild downturn from late July to early August, the stock market has met all the pessimism with a convincing upturn. Not only was the S&P 500 up 6.7 percent year- to date heading into Monday trading, but it has staged a 19 percent rally off the February closing low, a time when it seemed as if U.S. markets were descending into what would be a prolonged funk.