Investing.com -- The latest AAII Sentiment Survey reveals a significant increase in optimism among individual investors regarding the short-term outlook for stocks. Simultaneously, levels of neutral sentiment and pessimism have seen a decline.
Bullish sentiment, the expectation that stock prices will rise over the next six months, surged 18.0 percentage points to 43.4%. This marks the first time in four weeks that optimism has exceeded its historical average of 37.5%.
Neutral sentiment, the expectation that stock prices will remain essentially unchanged in the next six months, fell by 6.9 percentage points to 27.1%. This drop puts neutral sentiment below its historical average of 31.5% for the 27th time in the past 29 weeks.
Bearish sentiment, the expectation that stock prices will drop over the next six months, declined by 11.1 percentage points to 29.4%. This places pessimism below its historical average of 31.0% for the second time in 10 weeks.
The bull-bear spread, which is the difference between bullish and bearish sentiment, rose by 29.1 percentage points to 14.0%. This is the first time in five weeks that the bull-bear spread has exceeded its historical average of 6.5%.
In a special question posed this week, AAII members were asked about potential changes they anticipate making to their portfolios this year. The responses were as follows:
30.2% plan to focus more on portfolio income, including more investments in dividend-paying stocks and bonds.
28.9% do not anticipate making any changes to their portfolios.
19.5% intend to allocate more conservatively, with more investments in bonds and cash.
17.5% aim to invest more aggressively, with more investments in stocks and growth stocks.
3.4% have other plans.
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