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INDIVIDUAL INVESTORS SEE JUST SLIGHT S&P 500 GAINS IN 2026 - AAII

Optimism among individual investors over their short-term outlook for the U.S. stock market retreated in the latest American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) Sentiment Survey. With this, both pessimism and neutral sentiment rose.

Meanwhile, nearly half of investors surveyed said that they expect the S&P 500 .SPX to rise between 2% and 9% in 2026.

AAII reported that bullish sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, decreased 6.3 percentage points to 43.2%. Bullish sentiment is above its historical average of 37.5% for the eighth time in 11 weeks.

Bearish sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, gained 4.5 percentage points to 32.7%. Bearish sentiment is above its historical average of 31.0% for the 47th time in 52 weeks.

Neutral sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, added 1.8 percentage points to 24.1%. Neutral sentiment is below its historical average of 31.5% for the 79th time in 81 weeks.

The bull-bear spread fell 10.8 percentage points to 10.5% from 21.3% last week. The spread is above its historical average of 6.5% for the 12th time in 51 weeks.

In this week's special question, AAII asked its members what their performance forecast is for the S&P 500 index in 2026.

Here is AAII's graphic showing how they responded:

(Terence Gabriel)

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