AAII Sentiment Survey: Pessimism Expands

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

Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, decreased 0.8 percentage points to 34.7%. Optimism is below its historical average of 37.5% for the second time in six weeks.

Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, decreased 2.4 percentage points to 28.0%. Neutral sentiment is below its historical average of 31.5% for the 26th time in 27 weeks.

Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, increased 3.2 percentage points to 37.4%. Pessimism is above its historical average of 31.0% for the seventh time in eight weeks.

The bull-bear spread (bullish minus bearish sentiment) decreased 4.0 percentage points to –2.7%. The bull-bear spread is below its historical average of 6.5% for the fourth time in seven weeks.

This week’s special question asked AAII members how their portfolio performed in 2024 relative to their expectations at the beginning of the year.

Here’s how they responded:

• Much better than I expected: 21.9%
• Better than I expected: 45.6%
• Close to what I expected: 24.9%
• Worse than I expected: 6.1%
• Much worse than I expected: 1.5%

See more Sentiment Survey results.