Bearish investor sentiment as measured by the American Association of Individual Investors reached a high of 60.6%, just before the S&P 500 experienced its worst day of 2025 and second-worst March trading day ever on Monday.
What Happened: As highlighted by Ryan Detrick, the chief market strategist at Carson Research in his latest note, the bearish sentiment rose more than 60%, for the week ended Feb. 26. This was the seventh highest time in history since the poll was started in 1987.
Additionally, the 60.6% bearish reading was the highest in 30 months since September 2022 and is the third-highest reading over the last 10 years, as highlighted by LPL Financial in their note.
Detrick observed the historical data and suggested a potential contrarian buying opportunity. He noted that, on average, stocks have risen approximately 28% in the year following periods when bearish sentiment exceeded 60%.
Expanding the analysis to include all instances where bearish sentiment surpassed 55% in the AAII survey, he found consistently strong returns over the subsequent year. However, he cautioned that exceptions exist, highlighting the spike in fear observed in early 2008, which was followed by significantly lower returns a year later.
“Assuming we aren’t heading into another financial crisis (we don’t think we are), the other times we saw this was quite bullish for investors willing to stay strong and not panic sell. The S&P 500 was up a median of nearly 13% six months later and 18% a year later,” he stated.
Why It Matters: The survey data showed that only 19.4% of investors were bullish, whereas 20% had a neutral market sentiment. According to AAII, the bullish sentiment was unusually low and below its historical average of 37.5% for the seventh time in nine weeks.
Contrary to the AAII Sentiment Indicator, which indicates most investors remain bearish on the short-term outlook for stocks, respondents of the BofA survey remain cautiously optimistic, noted George Smith, portfolio strategist at LPL Financial.
“Given that the AAII Sentiment Indicator’s bull-bear spread is bearish and respondents of the BofA survey have conflicting views on the likelihood of a global recession and the valuation of U.S. equities, the consensus on markets appears to be relatively neutral,” said Smith.
Price Action: The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) and Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ), which track the S&P 500 index and Nasdaq 100 index, respectively, fell on Monday. The SPY declined 1.75% to $583.77, and the QQQ dropped 2.19% to $497.05, according to Benzinga Pro data.
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