paul hickey is looking at the market sentiment, saying that one indicator to watch is the investment's intelligence survey, saying that 85% of the responses are bullish. the last time it got to that number was back in may, and the s&p dropped. the important thing to remember is that no one can predict the future. for nightly business report. >>> and as dominic just mentioned, as we saw in today's "wall street journal" many investors are putting their money back into stocks five years after the financial crisis, and just as the u.s. economy seems to be getting a little steam. the individual investor was never far from anyone's mind. after all, the 2,000 registered investors in attendance managed to gather tens of thousands of investors, what i asked walt bettinger what he was seeing in his retail business, his answer was a surprise. so walt, there is talk that the retailer is back, is that what you see in your business? >> it is really not, people are pouring into the equity markets, what we've seen is investors are highly engaged with their portfolios. we don't see them saying i have t

paul hickey is the spokes co-founder, and good to see you again. >> good to be here, scott. >> i love the data you brought, because it does, in fact, show the performance of the s&p on a one, three, six-month period, following a big drop in gas prices, is positive. >> yeah, what we did is we looked at the current bull market in equities, and when we saw a 10% decline in gas prices over a three-month period, looked at how the market did. you would think this would be priced in, and the market would rally, but we've continued to rally going forward. three months later, each of the four times the market was up over 8% over the next three months. so the market may be pricing it in a little bit here, but, i mean, we should rally going forward. >> it's kind of weird, forever there was this correlation with cheaper gas is good for the consumer. and then, after 2008, it flip-flopp flip-flopped. we saw higher oil as a good thing for stocks, because it meant, hey, there's economic activity. is that now going the other way, or what are your thoughts on that correlation? >> i think what we're see

paul hickey says the last time it hit this level, the s&p fell by 5 %.st in may of 2013. so, overall, you've got a lot of warning signs. and i think that's the reason why this debate rages on. you don't have an axe to grind either way but interesting points, guys. >> sure. >> they really are. even though you're looking at valuations, higher than where they were, we're still not at the valuations we were back in the '90s. >> that's a fair point. valuations have always been what bulls have been hanging their hat on. they say the multiples aren't that bad. they're trading relative value. but at some point you have to see a little pullback. >> with a low rate environment, the investor has nowhere else to get yield but the equity market at this point. >> yep. absolutely. >> i'm going to stay out of this. i'll let you people duke this out. very civilized, though. nicely done. >> we're ten minutes away from the closing bell on wall street. market once again in record territory. dow industrials up by 16 points. >> i'll ask the questions, will we or won't we clos