REFILE-LIVE MARKETS-Individual investor bulls charge, bears retreat - AAII

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INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR BULLS CHARGE, BEARS RETREAT - AAII

Optimism among individual investors over the short-term outlook for U.S. stocks jumped in the latest American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) Sentiment Survey. With this, pessimism tumbled, while neutral sentiment edged down.

Meanwhile, a little over a third of investors surveyed said that turkey is their favorite food to eat on Thanksgiving Day.

AAII reported that bullish sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, surged 12.3 percentage points to 44.3%. Bullish sentiment is above its historical average of 37.5% for the first time in four weeks.

Bearish sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, slid 11.9 percentage points to 30.8%. Bearish sentiment is below its historical average of 31.0% for the first time in 45 weeks.

Neutral sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, slipped 0.4 percentage points to 24.9%. Neutral sentiment is below its historical average of 31.5% for the 72nd time in 74 weeks.

With these changes, the bull-bear spread rocketed 24.2 percentage points to +13.5% from -10.7% last week. The spread, which is at its highest reading since +14.0% on January 22, 2025, is above its historical average of 6.5% for the fifth time in 44 weeks.

In this week's special question AAII had a little fun. It asked its members what their favorite thing is to eat on the Thanksgiving holiday.

Here is AAII's graphic showing how they responded:

(Terence Gabriel)

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