Institutional brokers have become bearish on equities following stagnant equity markets over the last five trading days, according to the Trade Ideas Monitor (TIM).

Through the five trading days ending May 28, the FTSE increased 0.5% and the S&P by 2.2%. At the same time short ideas as a percentage of all new ideas sent to investment managers in real time through TIM, increased to 35.88% compared with 28.55% on May 22.

To date, shorts represent 37.88% of ideas in May and 42.70% in 2009.

The most long sectors in the US and North America were in packaged foods and meats, airlines and restaurants while the most short sectors included hypermarkets and super centres, multi-sector holdings and regional banks.

In the UK, Europe and Asia the most long sectors were integrated telecommunication services, biotechnology and airlines with diversified metals and mining, integrated oil and gas and consumer electronics as the most short.

The TIM Long-Short Index decreased 28.6% to 1.79 from 2.50 on May 22, a negative sign. The lower the index, the more bearish the brokers. The index measures the total number of long ideas compared to the total number of short ideas sent to clients,

Ideas entered into the TIM reflect which direction brokers believe a stock's price will move over the next 1-3 weeks, on average.