The latest gauge of investor sentiment is rife with uneasiness. Counterintuitively, some market strategists think that could be a bullish sign that forces traders to get back into the market and drive stocks higher.
Bearish individual investor sentiment toward stocks over the next six months rose by more than 10 percentage points, the most since February, in the latest weekly survey by the American Association of Individual Investors.
More than two-fifths of investors polled, or 43.2%, are now negative on how stocks will perform through the early part of next year, up from 33% last week. The 10.2-point rise was the most since a 20-point increase shortly after the S&P 500
reached a then-record high on Feb. 19.
According to Bespoke Investment Group, the week ending in Aug. 6 was just the fourth period since the bull market began in October 2022 that bearish sentiment had a 10-point weekly increase.
