The S&P 500 may have rebounded since this time last week, but sentiment has continued its slide. This week’s AAII Sentiment Survey saw only 32.1% of respondents report as bullish, the lowest percentage since 11/2/23.
In total, bullish sentiment has declined 17.9 percentage points since just four weeks ago, when it hit 50%. That is the largest drop since December 2021 for any given four-week span.
Given the drop in bulls, bears have picked up to 34%. However, that reading was little changed week-over-week, with a modest 0.1 percentage point increase. Like bulls, this is the highest bearish sentiment reading since last November.
Although the increase in bearish sentiment has been less pronounced, the inverse moves with bullish sentiment have been enough to push the bull-bear spread into negative territory for the first time since 11/3.
The 24 consecutive weeks with a positive bull-bear spread was one of the longest streaks in the survey’s history, and was tied with the 24-week streak that ended in July 2021 for the longest since 2015 (31 weeks). In all, there have only been 11 streaks that lasted at least 20 weeks in a row.
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