Chart: S&P 500 Bulls vs Bears – The Long Term View

HFA Padded
TopDownCharts
Published on
Updated on

This is one of my old favorite charts.  It looks at the combined, smoothed longer-term trend in investor sentiment from the AAII survey and the II sentiment surveys.  The last time I really talked about this chart was back in 2016 when the twin corrections drove a big reset in sentiment, where bulls got washed out and bearishness became popular again.  But now all we’re seeing is more and more bullishness and less and less bearishness – with very little reaction to the correction in the S&P500 earlier this year.

[activistinvesting]

Q2 hedge fund letters, conference, scoops etc

Bulls vs Bears

This is not the type of thing you see at the *start* of a bull market, it’s the type of thing you see towards the later stages of a market cycle.  In other words, when you get an extreme build up in positioning and emotion across investors, it leaves them vulnerable to a shakeout should their optimistic expectations be disappointed against.

Article by Top Down Charts