AAII Sentiment Survey: Neutral Sentiment Decreases

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

Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased 3.6 percentage points to 52.7%. Bullish sentiment is unusually high for the second consecutive week and is above its historical average of 37.5% for the 36th time in 37 weeks. Bullish sentiment was last higher on December 21, 2023 (52.9%).

Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, decreased 5.3 percentage points to 23.8%. Neutral sentiment is below its historical average of 31.5% for the 11th time in 18 weeks and was last lower on October 12, 2023 (23.5%).

Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, increased 1.7 percentage points to 23.4%. Bearish sentiment is below its historical average of 31.0% for the sixth consecutive week.

The bull-bear spread (bullish minus bearish sentiment) increased 1.8 percentage points to 29.3%. The bull-bear spread is above its historical average of 6.5% for the 11th consecutive week.

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

Here is how they responded:

• Stocks, in general, are overvalued: 36.0%
• Stocks, in general, are fairly valued: 15.1%
• Valuations are mixed, with some stocks expensive and others cheap: 43.9%
• Stocks, in general, are undervalued: 4.2%
• Not sure/no opinion: 0.4%

See more Sentiment Survey results.