AAII Sentiment Survey: Optimism Leaps Back

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

Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased 11.3 percentage points to 48.3%. Optimism is unusually high and is above its historical average of 37.5% for the 55th time in 57 weeks. Bullish sentiment fell just below the historical average during Thanksgiving week.

Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, decreased 3.3 percentage points to 21.0%. Neutral sentiment is below its historical average of 31.5% for the 21st time in 22 weeks.

Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, decreased 8.0 percentage points to 30.7%. Pessimism is below its historical average of 31.0% for the first time in three weeks.

The bull-bear spread (bullish minus bearish sentiment) increased 19.3 percentage points to 17.7%. (It fell to –1.6% last week.) The bull-bear spread is above its historical average of 6.5% for the 29th time in 31 weeks.

Over the holiday week, we asked AAII members what their favorite thing was to eat on Thanksgiving. Turkey was the most popular, followed by stuffing and desserts.

See more Sentiment Survey results.