Analysts are more pessimestic

Buy recommendations slipped below holds as a percentage of total U.S. stock picks for the first time ever in February, and now trail 45.3 percent to 47.8 percent, according to data Bloomberg began tracking in 1997. Sells have increased to 6.9 percent from 1.9 percent in March 2000. The amount of shorting -- where traders sell borrowed stocks expecting to buy them back when prices fall -- jumped to 3.1 percent of shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange in May. That's the highest since at least 1931, according to Bespoke Investment Group LLC, a research firm in Mamaroneck, New York. So-called short interest on the NYSE rose to a record 11.8 billion shares as of May 15, 7 percent more than a month earlier, according to the NYSE, the world's biggest exchange.