Bullish sentiment in the stock market can occur during both a bear market and a bull market. When we are in a bear market, sentiment gets bullish during counter-trend rallies, only to see new lows ahead. However, during the initial stages of a bull market, sentiment will also get bullish. To those who don’t analyse history, this is assumed to be a bad thing that is likely to doom the rally. One could argue though that we are at that point in the cycle right now. There are plenty of technical indications that stocks have transitioned into a bull market, whether it’s price action, the chart structures of certain major indices, or market breadth. At the initiation stage of a bull market, we need investors to turn more positive and start getting back into stocks. We have had some of that lately, yet we think part of the rally was short-covering as there was a lot of pessimism at the end of 2022. Now that the shorts have covered, that fuel is gone. If the market can hold on and grind higher, it would be a great sign that the stock market has indeed turned the corner.