Buzz on the Bullboards: Sector Alert – Stockhouse Investor Poll

As readers who have been following this feature already know, Buzz on the Bullboards is our vehicle to help you keep your finger on the pulse of investor sentiment. We’ve been advising you of weekly Bullboard leaders – and updating you with some of the news that is driving that traffic.

Now we’re going further. We’re taking weekly “Investor Pulse Polls”, located on the lower-right hand side of our homepage. We will be publishing the results of these polls in each weekly edition of Buzz on the Bullboards. How else can you get these poll results? Participate. Once you cast your vote, you can see updated poll results each time you visit our homepage.

Last week, we published the results to our poll on cannabis. You told us that (by and large) you remain optimistic about the direction of cannabis stocks, with 60% of decided voters expecting these stocks to go higher over the next 60 days.

This week, we broadened our inquiry. We wanted to know about which sector you’re most bullish at the present time. This is what you told us.

Given last week’s poll, it’s not a big surprise to see which sector is drawing the strongest sentiment at present – cannabis. Where things get much more interesting is when we rank the sectors after cannabis.

Energy? Even with oil prices generally trending higher over the past year, many energy companies have had difficulty in getting traction in markets in recent months. Stockhouse investors are (apparently) looking to see valuations rising to be more in-synch with energy prices.

On the Stockhouse Bullboards, rising to #1 in the Energy sector is Baytex Energy Corp. (TSX: BTE, NYSE: BTE, Forum). In second place behind BTE is Crescent Point Energy Corp. (TSX: CPG, NYSE: CPG, Forum). At present, investors are watching the larger cap companies more closely. However, these poll results suggest that the small-cap energy companies may be about to get some love – at least from Stockhouse investors.

Behind energy is the gold sector. This will be a surprise to some investors; totally expected by others. While the mainstream media appears to have completely forgotten this, for thousands of years gold (and silver) has been the go-to asset class for investors in times of economic uncertainty – including market turbulence.

With gold stocks part of the mining industry, we include the gold mining companies in our “Metals & Mining” Bullboard leaders. Topping the Metals & Mining leaders last week was Novo Resources Corp (TSX: V.NVO, OTCQB: NSRPF, Forum) – a junior miner that has acquired a strong following after NVO’s share price took off last summer.

(click to enlarge)

Looking at the opposite side of the spectrum, there’s not as much bullish sentiment at Stockhouse at the moment for Technology (5%), Healthcare (8%), or Metals & Mining (13%) – in broader terms. That’s the snapshot at Stockhouse for the moment. We will monitor sector sentiment from time to time, so watch for our next update here.

This week’s new question:

Has recent turbulence in Canada’s urban housing markets had an impact on your present investing behavior?

1. Doing more buying and less selling
2. Doing less buying and more selling
3. No change in investing behavior

Canadian investors are also often homeowners as well. With Toronto’s housing market having corrected and the Vancouver market looking ‘wobbly’, we want to know if changes in sentiment in housing is having a spill-over effect to peoples’ investing.