Markets Gripped By Pessimism As Bearish Sentiment Breaks 35-Year Record, Remains Above 50% For 8 Straight Weeks

The bearish sentiment, measured by the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) Sentiment Survey, broke a record this week as it stayed above the 50%-mark for the eighth consecutive week. What Happened: Despite a weekly decrease in negative sentiment, the latest AAII survey showed bearishness still leading bullish and neutral views at 56.9% this week.

The bullish sentiment also declined from the previous week, while neutral sentiment rose to 17.7% from 12.5%.



AAII survey, conducted weekly from Thursday to Wednesday, noted a 2% decrease in pessimism from 58.9% to 56.9% this week; similarly, bullish sentiment also reduced by nearly 3% from 28.

5% to 25.4% this week. The bearish sentiment continues to be above 50% for the eighth straight week.

The streak began on the week ended Feb. 26, when it first touched the 60.6% mark.

While the seven-week-long streak matched a 35-year-old record from October 1990, this week’s eighth week of advance broke all records. According to Subu Trade, “This has never happened before. Not during COVID, 2008, the dot-com collapse, or the 1990 bear market.

” AAII Bears is now at 56.9% This is the 8th consecutive week with over 50% Bears. This has never happened before.

Not during COVID, 2008, dot-com collapse, or 1990 bear market pic.twitter.com/yQ3upMQXbr See Also: Gold Nears $3,400 Mark, Experts Point To Likely ‘Correction’ Amid Bull Market: ‘Rates Will Drop Like Rock’ Why It Matters: The historical average of bearish sentiments stood at 31%, which was nearly half of the current pessimism among the participants of the AAII survey.

Whereas, historically, the bullish participants surveyed to at 37.5% on an average. Jeff Weniger , the head of equities at WisdomTree, shared a graph combining all the fear gauges, including VIX, AAII Bears, and Investors Intelligence survey, to conclude that the S&P 500 index always gains after a period of extreme fear.

“In 10 of the last 11 fear spikes, the S&P 500 went on to gains over the next 52 weeks. Returns were often large too (+31.0%, +21.

0%, and so on),” he said. Maybe my favorite chart this month. You're looking at the highest reading on record in 1,841 weekly stock market sentiment observations from 1990 to 2025.

The inputs: the VIX volatility index + AAII survey bearish respondents + Investors Intelligence survey respondents who...

pic.twitter.com/mIV9gqWDZv Similarly, Puru Saxena , the founder of AlphaTarget, noted that such fearful considerations “historically led to better than average 52-week gains for U.

S. stocks.” Spike in VIX + very high % bears in AAII Sentiment Survey + CTAs net short + very high short positions in US ETFs has historically led to better than average 52-week gains for US stocks.

$NDX $SPX Price Action: The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY and Invesco QQQ Trust ETF QQQ , which track the S&P 500 index and Nasdaq 100 index, respectively, rose in premarket on Thursday. The SPY was up 0.32% to $527.

34, while the QQQ advanced 0.57% to $446.70, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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