AAII Sentiment Survey: Pessimism Falls

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

Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased 4.0 percentage points to 36.7%. Bullish sentiment is below its historical average of 37.5% for the 18th time in 19 weeks and is above 30% for only the 10th time this year.

Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, increased 3.8 percentage points to 29.7%. Neutral sentiment is below its historical average of 31.5% for the 47th time in 49 weeks.

Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, decreased 7.8 percentage points to 33.6%. Bearish sentiment is above its historical average of 31.0% for the 28th time in 30 weeks.

The bull-bear spread (bullish minus bearish sentiment) increased 11.8 percentage points to 3.1%. The bull-bear spread is below its historical average of 6.5% for the 19th time in 21 weeks.

This week’s special question asked AAII members how, if at all, they changed their approach to investing recently.

Here is how they responded:

• I’ve become much more conservative/cautious: 17.2%
• I’ve become slightly more conservative: 23.7%
• I’ve switched around some investments, but only made modest changes overall: 24.9%
• I’ve become more aggressive: 9.8%
• No changes: 24.0%

See more Sentiment Survey results.