This week was the first time in eight weeks where economists’ consensus expectations for jobless claims was not 265K, and while they finally lowered their consensus forecast to 261K, the decline wasn’t enough as first time claims dropped to 252K, which was the lowest weekly reading since mid-July.  At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this week’s report represents the 81st straight week that claims have been below 300K, which is the longest streak in over 40 years.

With this week’s decline, the four-week moving average dropped from 260.75K down to 258.5K.  That’s the lowest level since late July and just 2.5K above the cycle low of 256K from April.  We had a hard time believing that we would ever get back down near the cycle lows, but another week like this week’s print and the four-week moving average will be right there.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis (NSA), jobless claims rose from 193.3K up to 205.8K.  Despite the increase, this week’s reading is more than 100K below the average for the current week of the year since 2000 and the lowest reading since 1973.  Judging by the standards of jobless claims at least, the labor market remains in pretty good shape.

The S&P 500 closed Wednesday less than 1.5% from an all-time closing high, but looking at the most recent sentiment figures from AAII, you would think that equities are in a bear market.  According to this week’s sentiment survey, bullish sentiment fell to 24.83% down from 27.94%.  That’s the lowest weekly reading since late June, the 47th straight week that bullish sentiment was below 40%, and the 81st time in the last 82 weeks that we have seen sub-40% readings.  Based on this survey at least, it is hard to say that investors are complacent.

While the bullish camp increasingly shrinks, bears are showing up all over the place.  It wasn’t just the recent Delivering Alpha conference from CNBC where bears were everywhere, but individual investors are increasingly bearish.  According to this week’s survey, bearish sentiment increased from 35.92% up to 38.28%.  This is the first week that bearish sentiment has been higher than both bullish and neutral sentiment as well as the highest weekly reading since the February market lows.

Yesterday, we highlighted a list of the Russell 3,000’s most heavily shorted stocks.  This afternoon, we’re looking at the most loved stocks by analysts in the index.  To make the list, the stock has to be covered by at least 10 analysts.  The 35 stocks below have at least 92% “Buy” ratings by analysts.  For this analysis, ratings like “Overweight” or “Outperform” are considered “Buy” ratings as well.  In the Russell 3,000, there are 12 stocks that have 100% “Buy” ratings.  These include Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH), Planet Fitness (PLNT), Paycom (PAYC), LendingTree (TREE), Vonage (VG), and Affiliated Managers (AMG).  Other notables on the list of most loved stocks include Broadcom (AVGO), salesforce.com (CRM), AMC Entertainment (AMC), and Sabre (SABR).

While it’s nice to be loved by analysts, this type of bullishness in the Wall Street community doesn’t leave much room for improvement.  If a stock already has 100% “Buy” ratings, it can’t benefit from any upgrade calls!  Contrarians can use this list to find potential names that may be too loved at the moment.  Next to each stock on the list, we’ve included its short interest levels as a percentage of float (SIPF) and year-to-date percentage change.  Stocks with low short interest that have had big runs this year already may be names to avoid.  If the stock has high short interest levels, it means the analyst community has quite a different take on the company than actual investors.  In this regards, names like LendingTree (TREE), Paycom (PAYC), Carrizo Oil & Gas (CRZO), Cempra (CEMP), and Amsurg (AMSG) stand out.

We’ll be back tomorrow with a list of the Russell 3,000’s most hated stocks by analysts.

Following on the heels of yesterday’s report from the API, today’s release of weekly crude oil and gasoline inventories showed notable declines. In the case of crude oil, inventories declined by 6.2 million barrels, compared to expectations for a gain of 3.35 million barrels.  You may recall two weeks ago that a much larger than expected drawdown in crude oil inventories was attributed to weather impacts from Tropical Storm Hermine.  Because of that inventories were expected to rebound in the coming weeks.  So far, though, those increases have yet to materialize as the last two weeks have continued to see declines.  With this week’s decline, US crude oil inventories are still 177 million barrels above their historical average dating back to 1984, but that is the lowest ‘surplus’ and lowest total level since February.

Gasoline stockpiles were expected to decline by 1.3 million barrels this week, but the actual decline was about 2.5 times that at -3.2 million barrels.  As shown in the chart, the recent declines in gasoline stockpiles have come at a time of year when they are typically starting to level off or even rise.  As a result, gasoline stocks are not far from levels where they were at this time last year.

Bespoke’s Paul Hickey appeared on CNBC’s Fast Money on Tuesday evening to discuss the Fed and elections.  To view the segment please click on the image below.