AAII Sentiment Survey: Pessimism Above Average for 14th Consecutive Week

Pessimism remains unchanged in the latest AAII Sentiment Survey, continuing an above-average streak. Neutral sentiment decreased, while optimism increased.

Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased 4.5 percentage points to 27.4%. This puts optimism slightly above the dividing line of typical and unusually low readings for the fourth time in 14 weeks.

Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, decreased 4.5 percentage points to 32.9%. Neutral sentiment is above its historical average of 31.5% for the 18th time out of the last 21 weeks.

Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, is stagnant at 39.7%. Pessimism remains in its historical range for the second consecutive week. Bearish sentiment is above its historical average of 31.0% for the 74th time out of the past 79 weeks.

The bull-bear spread (bullish minus bearish sentiment) increased to –12.3% and remains unusually low for the fifth consecutive week.

This week’s special question asked AAII members about their perception of first-quarter earnings. Here are the responses:

• They were better than I expected: 37.4%
• They approximately matched my expectations: 41.4%
• They were worse than I expected: 6.2%
• No opinion: 14.6%

See more Sentiment Survey results.