bearish sentiment

The percentage of investors expecting the market to decline over the short term. Bearish sentiment reflects pessimism about market prospects and can result from negative economic news, earnings reports or global events. AAII tracks investor sentiment in the AAII Investor Sentiment Survey by polling members each week on whether they feel that the direction of the stock market will be up (bullish), down (bearish) or unchanged (neutral) over the next six months. Like bullish sentiment, extreme bearish readings may be interpreted as a contrarian indicator, suggesting that pessimism has reached a level where markets are more likely to rebound.