AAII Sentiment Survey: Pessimism Pushes Through

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 2.1 percentage points to 39.3%. Bullish sentiment is above its historical average of 37.5% for the third time in eight weeks.

Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, decreased 1.2 percentage points to 21.8%. Neutral sentiment is below its historical average of 31.5% for the 52nd time in 54 weeks.

Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, increased 3.4 percentage points to 39.0%. Bearish sentiment is above its historical average of 31.0% for the 33rd time in 35 weeks.

The bull-bear spread (bullish minus bearish sentiment) decreased 5.5 percentage points to 0.3%. The bull-bear spread is below its historical average of 6.5% for the 23rd time in 24 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: 19.1%
• I’ve become slightly more conservative: 19.8%
• I’ve switched around some investments, but only made modest changes overall: 26.2%
• I’ve become more aggressive: 9.9%
• No changes: 25.1%

See more Sentiment Survey results.