Go With the Pros and Grab Blackstone

The investors who make these kinds of decisions -- moms and dads, teachers and doctors -- may be great people, but they have proven themselves in cycle after cycle to be horrible market-timers. So the stunning skew in their decision making, away from U.S. stocks and toward foreign stocks and domestic bonds, could be an indication that U.S. stocks are on the verge of a period of serious outperformance.

If this sounds to you like deja vu, you are right on the mark. TrimTabs points out that when the U.S. stock market topped out in 2000, mutual fund investors had just completed a 12-month period in which they poured a record $260 billion into U.S. equity funds while yanking $50 billion out of bond funds -- loading up on exactly the wrong asset class as shares were about to plunge.

And then by the time the U.S. market hit bottom in October 2002, retail investors had gone fully in reverse, draining $25 billion from U.S. equity mutual funds and dumping $141 billion into bond funds. Whoops.

Companies and corporate insiders appear to be doing just the opposite right now. Federal regulatory data show that insider selling totaled only $240 million daily from July 20 through late last week, down almost 50% from the annual average. This means that people who actually run companies and know how well they're doing are not betting that the market is on the verge of a wipeout.