By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch

ANNANDALE, Va. (MarketWatch) -- If you harbor any doubts about what I have written in recent weeks about newsletter sentiment in the stock market, consider the list of mutual funds that are most popular among their editors.

As I have argued on a number of occasions over the past couple of months, the average newsletter editor is quite cautious about the stock market right now, if not outright bearish, as measured by his recommended stock market exposure. (Read my most recent column on the subject.)

It turns out that newsletter editors' bearishness is also very evident in the kind of mutual funds that they are most widely recommending.

Despite the bond market's dismal performance in recent weeks, and the nearly unanimous belief that interest rates have nowhere to go but up, bond funds dominate the list of mutual funds that are most recommended by the 181 newsletters monitored by the Hulbert Financial Digest. (See list below.)

In other words, unattractive as bond funds may otherwise appear right now, they still are more attractive to the average newsletter editor than stock funds.

From a contrarian point of view, such widespread bearishness turns out to be good news for stocks, since the market likes to climb a wall of worry.

If that wall of worry weren't so formidable right now, and instead the average newsletter editor was irrationally exuberant, then the list of newsletters' most popular funds would not only be dominated by stock funds, but in particular by aggressive funds that invest in smaller-cap and more speculative issues.

That most definitely is not the case today.

Of the six most-recommended mutual funds currently, for example, four are in the fixed income arena. Of the two stock funds, one focuses on international rather than domestic stocks. And the sixth concentrates on the natural gas sector, which arguably will perform the best during conditions that will be bearish for the rest of the stock market.

The most recent edition of the Hulbert Financial Digest is available by e-mail or regular mail. Highlights include:

• Popularity contest: Pfizer is currently recommended by no fewer than 20 of 180 monitored newsletters.

• Performance scoreboards, most/least popular stocks and funds, market exposure among timers

• Profiles: Equity Fund Outlook, Fidelity Monitor, Growth Stock Outlook, Investor's World

For information or to subscribe to the Hulbert Financial Digest, click here.