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MOST INVESTORS SAY 2026 HAS EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS — AAII

Individual investors grew a bit less pessimistic about the U.S. stock market in the latest American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) Sentiment Survey, while optimism improved and neutral views edged slightly higher.

Perhaps most notably, more than two-thirds of survey respondents said the stock market's year-to-date performance has been better than they expected at the start of the year.

According to AAII, bearish sentiment — the percentage of investors who expect stock prices to decline over the next six months — fell 5.1 percentage points to 37.2%. Even so, bearishness remains above its long-term average of 31.0% for a 22nd consecutive week.

Neutral sentiment, which reflects expectations that stock prices will remain largely unchanged over the next six months, edged up 0.1 percentage point to 26.5%. That remains well below its historical average of 31.5%, marking the 103rd time in the past 105 weeks that neutral sentiment has been below average.

Meanwhile, bullish sentiment — expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months — climbed 4.9 percentage points to 36.3%. Despite the increase, optimism remains below its historical average of 37.5% for the seventh time in the past eight weeks.

The gap between bulls and bears narrowed considerably, with the bull-bear spread improving 10 percentage points to –0.9% from –10.9% a week earlier. Even with that improvement, the spread remains below its historical average of 6.5% for the 20th time in the past 22 weeks.

In this week's special question, AAII asked its members how the stock market's year-to-date return compares to their expectations at the start of 2026.

Here is AAII's graphic showing how they responded.

(Terence Gabriel)

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