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Significant market tops and bottoms are normally accompanied by extremes of sentiment in one direction, and that is a strong indication that the market is about to head in the opposite direction. For example, market participants are extremely bullish at tops, just before the market starts to head down. We watch the usual sentiment polls (CONSENSUS, AAII, Investor's Intelligence), and we also take a subjective measure of message board sentiment, which gives us a more short-term picture of the average investor.

Regardless of the time frame of the poll, in my opinion, all sentiment is short-term and reflects the emotional state of the person being polled at that moment. The person's outlook can change in a heart beat if some new element is injected upon the market scene.