Bears Hold Slender Grip on Sentiment

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Caution. Trepidation. Call it what you will, but sentiment has shifted mildly to the bearish side, according to the results of TheStreet.com RealMoney Barometer Survey, as an encouraging start to the holiday shopping season in the U.S. was being weighed down by debt concerns out of Dubai.

In the final poll results Monday, participants who were bearish racked up 458 votes, or 44%, of the total 1033 votes cast in the survey. The bulls scored 445 votes, or 43%, while neutral tallied 130 votes, or 13%.

It's the first time in four weeks that the bears have led the poll.

>>View Poll Results

On the bearish side, commercial banks were seen as the sector most likely to post declines this week, tallying just under 29% of the bearish votes. The stocks of big U.S. banks -- Citigroup(C Quote), down 2.6% on Friday; Bank of America(BAC Quote), down 3%; and JPMorgan Chase (JPM Quote), down 2%; -- skidded on news that Dubai's investment arm, Dubai World, could default on $60 billion in debt. But once the dust settled Friday, a day that saw stock markets in the U.S. fall during an abbreviated session, it was reported that U.S. banks had relatively limited exposure to the problems in Dubai, contrary to their European counterparts.

News on Sunday that the United Arab Emirates' central bank will offer additional liquidity to banks, a move designed to keep credit markets from freezing up, could assuage investors.

Not surprisingly, investment banks and brokers were seen as the second most likely sector to fall this week, a week chock full of economic reports, the biggest being the Labor Department's November employment report, scheduled for Friday.

For those investors leaning bullish, precious metals was being viewed as the sector most likely to post gains, followed by commercial banks.

The metals sector continues to be looked upon favorably in the eyes of poll participants, despite gold falling $13.10 on Friday to $1,175.50 as word hit the markets that Dubai World said it was asking for a six-month delay to repaying its debt. Gold for February delivery was recently trading at $1,171.50, down $4 on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

As far as retailing is concerned, it appears shoppers came out for Black Friday and stayed through the weekend sapping up bargains at stores such as Wal-Mart(WMT Quote), Target(TGT Quote) and Best Buy(BBY Quote), and online at Amazon.com(AMZN Quote).

According to preliminary figures released Saturday by research firm ShopperTrak, sales rose 0.5% to $10.66 billion Friday from a year earlier. That was on top of a 3% increase last year.

Online sales Thursday and Friday rose 11% to $913 million, according to data released Sunday by comScore, an Internet research firm.

The National Retail Federation trade group, meanwhile, said Sunday it was sticking to its forecast for holiday sales to decline 1% from last year.