AAII Sentiment Survey: Optimism Continues Its Climb

Optimism among individual investors about the short-term outlook for stocks increased in the latest AAII Sentiment Survey. Meanwhile, pessimism decreased, with neutral sentiment staying roughly flat.

Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased 2.2 percentage points to 48.6%. Optimism’s rise moved it back to an unusually high level. Bullish sentiment is above its historical average of 37.5% for the ninth consecutive week and the 10th time in 13 weeks.

Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, decreased 0.7 percentage points to 27.9%. Neutral sentiment is below its historical average of 31.5% for the fifth consecutive week and the 13th time in 14 weeks.

Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, decreased 1.6 percentage points to 23.5%. Bearish sentiment is below its historical average of 31.0% for the ninth consecutive week.

The bull-bear spread (bullish minus bearish sentiment) increased 3.8 percentage points to 25.1%. The bull-bear spread is above its historical average of 6.5% for the ninth consecutive week and the 10th time in 18 weeks.

This week’s special question asked AAII members what they think about the rebound in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Here is how they responded:

• It’s a return of a speculative bubble: 46.8%
• It reflects optimism of a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) being approved: 22.5%
• Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were previously undervalued: 3.0%
• Not sure/no opinion: 27.4%

See more Sentiment Survey results.