The S&P 500 has gotten off to a rocky start to the new year, but it hasn’t knocked down bullish sentiment yet. This week’s bullish sentiment reading from the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) rose from 46.3% in the final week of 2023 up to 48.6% this week. That edges bullish sentiment back towards the multi-year high of 52.9% put in place two weeks ago and still leaves bullish sentiment over a full standard deviation above its historical average.
As for bearish sentiment, things are not as extended, though at 23.5%, the share of bears is still several percentage points lower than the historical average (31%).
That means the bull-bear spread is also still historically in favor of bulls with a 25 percentage point gap between the two.
Including other weekly sentiment surveys, the picture is a bit more muddled albeit still showing a bias towards bullishness. For starters, after its holiday hiatus, the Investors Intelligence survey posted its highest reading on bullish sentiment since November 2021. Conversely, this week’s reading in the NAAIM Exposure index tracking active managers’ equity exposure plummeted from a reading above 100 (meaning managers reported they were fully invested long) all the way down to 71. That is the lowest reading in the index since early November.
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