AAII Sentiment Survey: Pessimism Above Average for 15th Consecutive Week

Pessimism decreased but continued its streak of above-average readings in the latest AAII Sentiment Survey. Neutral sentiment and bullish sentiment rose.

Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased 1.7 percentage points to 29.1%. This keeps optimism within its typical range for just the fourth time in the last 15 weeks. Nonetheless, bullish sentiment remains below its historical average of 37.5% for the 78th time out of the last 80 weeks.

Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, increased 1.2 percentage points to 34.1%. Neutral sentiment is above its historical average of 31.5% for the 19th time out of the last 22 weeks.

Bearish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, decreased 2.9 percentage points to 36.8%. Bearish sentiment is above its historical average of 31.0% for the 75th time out of the past 80 weeks.

The bull-bear spread (bullish minus bearish sentiment) increased to –7.8% after being unusually low for the last five weeks.

This week’s special question asked AAII members how they would describe the current state of the economy. Here are the responses:

• Strong: 6.3%
• Mixed with areas of strength and weaknesses: 72.8%
• Weak: 18.1%
• Not sure/No opinion: 2.0%

See more Sentiment Survey results.