AAII Sentiment Survey: Optimism Rises

Optimism among individual investors about the short-term outlook for stocks significantly increased in the latest AAII Sentiment Survey. Meanwhile, both pessimism and neutral sentiment decreased.

Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased 6.8 percentage points to 50.0%. Bullish sentiment is unusually high and is above its historical average of 37.5% for the 21st consecutive week.

Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, decreased 2.1 percentage points to 27.6%. Neutral sentiment is below its historical average of 31.5% for the seventh time in nine weeks.

Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, decreased 4.7 percentage points to 22.4%. Bearish sentiment is below its historical average of 31.0% for the 21st consecutive week.

The bull-bear spread (bullish minus bearish sentiment) increased 11.5 percentage points to 27.6%. The bull-bear spread is above its historical average of 6.5% for the 21st consecutive week.

This week’s special question asked AAII members how they would describe the current state of the economy.

Here is how they responded:

• Great: 9.0%
• Good: 43.6%
• Mixed: 38.8%
• Lousy: 8.0%
• Not sure/no opinion: 0.7%

See more Sentiment Survey results.