"Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria. The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell."
-- Sir John Templeton

Just as it makes sense to research the stocks attracting top investors, it's equally important to figure out why smart money is leaving other investments. Using Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's 115,000-member-strong investing community, we can see which stocks are losing support from CAPS All-Star players.

A sudden decrease in interest from top-rated investors could signal that the stock is losing steam, which might make it an awful stock to avoid for now. At the very least, such drops should signal that further research is in order.

Here are five stocks receiving less support from CAPS All-Stars over the past month:

Company

Industry

% Change in All-Star Bulls From 8/4 to 9/1

CAPS Rating
(out of 5)

CAPS Research

SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE:GLD)

ETF - Specialty

(14%)

***

GLD

Ultrashort QQQ Proshares (AMEX:QID)

ETF - Bear Market

(13%)

*

QID

Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (NYSE:SID)

Steel & Iron

(10%)

****

SID

Pan American Silver Corp (NASDAQ:PAAS)

Precious Metals & Minerals

(14%)

****

PAAS

Newmont Mining (NYSE:NEM)

Gold

(14%)

***

NEM

Source: Motley Fool CAPS and Yahoo! Finance, as of Sept. 1, 2008.

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