AAII Sentiment Survey: Neutral Sentiment Falls

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

Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased 6.2 percentage points to 47.0%. Bullish sentiment is above its historical average of 37.5% for the 28th time in 29 weeks.

Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, decreased 9.2 percentage points to 26.6%. Neutral sentiment is below its historical average of 31.5% for the third time in seven weeks.

Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, increased 3.1 percentage points to 26.3%. Bearish sentiment is below its historical average of 31.0% for the third time in six weeks.

The bull-bear spread (bullish minus bearish sentiment) increased 3.1 percentage points to 20.7%. The bull-bear spread is above its historical average of 6.5% for the third time in six weeks.

This week’s special question asked AAII members about their perception of first-quarter 2024 earnings.

Here is how they responded:

• They were better than I expected: 45.7%
• They approximately matched my expectations: 37.9%
• They were worse than I expected: 2.3%
• No opinion: 14.1%

See more Sentiment Survey results.