LIVE MARKETS-Individual investor bulls highest since November 2024 - AAII

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INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR BULLS HIGHEST SINCE NOVEMBER 2024 - AAII

Optimism among individual investors about the short-term outlook for the U.S. stock market made a leap in the latest American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) Sentiment Survey. With this, both pessimism and neutral sentiment retreated.

Meanwhile, nearly half of investors surveyed said that in 2025, their portfolio performed better than they expected.

AAII reported that bullish sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, gained 7.0 percentage points to 49.5%. Bullish sentiment is "unusually high" and is above its historical average of 37.5% for the seventh time in 10 weeks. Optimism was last higher on November 14, 2024 (49.8%).

Bearish sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, dipped 1.8 percentage points to 28.2%. Bearish sentiment is below its historical average of 31.0% for the fifth time in seven weeks.

Neutral sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, declined 5.2 percentage points to 22.3%. Neutral sentiment is "unusually low" and is below its historical average of 31.5% for the 78th time in 80 weeks.

The bull-bear spread rose 8.8 percentage points to 21.3% from 12.5% last week. The spread is above its historical average of 6.5% for the 11th time in 50 weeks.

In this week's special question, AAII asked its members how their portfolio performed in 2025 relative to their expectations.

Here is AAII's graphic showing how they responded:

(Terence Gabriel)

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