AAII Sentiment Survey: Pessimism Drops

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

Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased 2.0 percentage points to 42.5%. Bullish sentiment is above its historical average of 37.5% for the 40th time in 41 weeks.

Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, increased 6.6 percentage points to 28.6%. Neutral sentiment is below its historical average of 31.5% for the sixth consecutive week.

Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, decreased 8.6 percentage points to 28.9%. Bearish sentiment is below its historical average of 31.0% for the eighth time in 10 weeks.

The bull-bear spread (bullish minus bearish sentiment) increased 10.6 percentage points to 13.7%. The bull-bear spread is above its historical average of 6.5% for the 14th time in 15 weeks.

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

Here is how they responded:

• Great: 1.8%
• Good: 34.1%
• Mixed: 47.8%
• Lousy: 15.6%
• Not sure/no opinion: 0.4%

See more Sentiment Survey results.