RE: Default of US debt coming up1 Oct 2021 18:23
BEARS CLIMB TO A 1-YEAR HIGH (1201 EDT/1601 GMT)
The percentage of investors with a bearish short-term outlook for the U.S. stock market hit its highest level in a year in the latest American Association of Individual Investors Sentiment Survey (AAII).
AAII reported that bullish sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, slipped 1.8 percentage points to 28.1%. This is the third consecutive week that bullish sentiment is below the historical average of 38.0%.
Bearish sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, increased by 1.5 percentage points to 40.7%. Pessimism was last higher on Sept. 30, 2020 (43.1%). This is the third consecutive week and the eighth time out of the last nine weeks that bearish sentiment is above the historical average of 30.5%.
Neutral sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, edged up by 0.2 percentage points to 31.1%. This minor uptick puts neutral sentiment only slightly under the historical average of 31.5%.
AAII noted that bearish sentiment is now "at an unusually high level. AAII added that, "historically, unusually high levels of pessimism have been followed by above-average and above-median six-month returns in the S&P 500 index."
With these changes, the bull-bear spread ticked down to -12.6 from -9.3 last week :
(Terence Gabriel)
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