AAII Investors Sentiment Survey: Individual Investor Sentiment Hits Multi-Year Records

Ted

FYI: As we made note of last week, the survey of individual investor sentiment from AAII results for saw a surprising divergence from market’s price action due to timing issues of the survey. Last week saw a jump in bullish sentiment despite major declines on Tuesday. This week’s survey was much weaker, with bullish sentiment plunging. It’s now down to 20.9% from 37.9%. As shown in the chart below, this reading of 20.9% collapsed well below lows of the year and is at the lowest point since May 26, 2016. This was also the third largest WoW drop of the current cycle and the largest since mid-November of 2010 when bullish sentiment fell by only half a percentage point more.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/individual-investor-sentiment-hits-multi-year-records/

Mark

From the survey:

Bullish: 20.9%, down 17.0 points
Neutral: 30.2%, down 1.3 points
Bearish: 48.9%, up 18.4 points

hank

All I know is I needed to talk to a rep at T. Rowe this afternoon and got a recorded message: “We are experiencing heavier than usual call volume.” Finally did get through to a rep after 20 minutes waiting. My instinct is to guess that a lot of folks are bailing from equity funds. Probably an incorrect guess. Hope I’m wrong. Don’t want to be the last one left holding the hot potato.

catch22

Evening @hank
I honestly don't know how many account holders need to contact Fidelity via phone at any given time; BUT I do hope or at least suspect that many account holders do transactions on-line and not with a rep.
'Course, I also understand that there may be more older folks than I might guess who do perform any buy/sell via a keyboard and only with a phone call.
Interesting observation and would be a great story write if one could somehow verify the major vendors as to phone volume and sell orders. Perhaps the call volume was higher from folks who are wondering the NAV price drops and don't know the distributions that take place this time of the year. Who knows, eh?
Good night.
Catch

hank

@Catch22,

Agree most actively engaged investors use the web to buy and sell. However, If (a big if) folks who normally don’t pay much attention to their investments and who are not accustomed to buying and selling were to become suddenly unnerved by headline news and decide to sell, they would be more inclined to do so by calling. Thst’s what I meant to suggest.

I don’t know what possibly might have unnerved the otherwise “Steady Eddie” investment crowd. Certainly, Washington Post columnists get butchered every day without U.S. condemnation, former Attorneys for the President get sent to jail all the time for acting on their behalf, and shutting-down the federal government (if I don’t get $$ for a big wall) is a common practice.

-

PS: Just a silly suggestion I suppose. But if we’re gonna spend millions for the wall, why not upgrade it with attractive lighting? I’m thinking of something similar to the bright flashing multi-colored signs all around Times Square in NYC. That would make a bold statement for all to see. Lots of desert and mountains out there where giant wind turbines could be erected to power the lights. Heck, even mice wouldn’t dare to sneak through such an ecifice!

msf

FWIW, I called both Fidelity and TRP a couple of days ago regarding which funds could be moved where, converting share classes, etc. Not your typical "the sky is falling" call, more of an "end of year planning, how can I outmaneuver your restrictions/fees" type of call.

TRP took 20 minutes to answer. Fidelity took 30.

Useless trivia about Times Square lighting: Times Square is a special zone that's allowed to be lit up bright as day. (Well, it is all Disney.) In most of the rest of New York City, you have to get special permission to put up virtually anything illuminated, especially if the lighting changes (as on a screen).