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NEUTRAL SENTIMENT NEARS EARLY-NOVEMBER HIGH - AAII

Neutral sentiment among individual investors over the short-term outlook for U.S. stocks increased in the latest American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) Sentiment Survey. With this, both optimism and pessimism decreased.

Meanwhile, around three-quarters of investors surveyed characterized the updated earnings guidance given by companies during the Q3 earnings season as either "approximately what I expected" or "better than I expected."

AAII reported that neutral sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, gained 1.4 percentage points to 25.3% (highest since 25.8% on November 5). Neutral sentiment is below its historical average of 31.5% for the 71st time in 73 weeks.

Bullish sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, edged down 0.6 percentage points to 32.0%. Bullish sentiment is below its historical average of 37.5% for the fifth time in seven weeks.

Bearish sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, slipped 0.9 percentage points to 42.7%. Bearish sentiment is above its historical average of 31.0% for the 52nd time in 54 weeks.

With these changes, the bull-bear spread increased 0.3 percentage points to –10.7% from –11.0% last week. The bull-bear spread is below its historical average of 6.5% for the 39th time in 43 weeks.

In this week's special question, AAII asked its members how they would describe the updated earnings guidance given by companies during the third-quarter earnings season.

Here is AAII's graphic showing how they responded:

(Terence Gabriel)

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