Positive Sentiment Streak At An End

This week's sentiment gauges saw some big moves. As we noted in last night's Closer, the Charles Schwab (SCHW) Schwab Trading Activity Index, or STAX for short, experienced a near record increase in February. Meanwhile, other weekly sentiment gauges have deteriorated. The AAII survey is a prime example, as bullish sentiment fell to 31.9% this week. That is the sixth consecutive weekly decline, bringing bullish sentiment to the lowest level since the week of 11/13.

That drop in bulls was met with a double-digit percentage point surge in bears. Bearish sentiment leaped from 35.5% last week, a one-month low, to 46.4% today. That is the highest reading for bears since the week of 10/16 and the largest one-week increase since November.

Put together, the bull-bear spread has now been negative (meaning there are more bears than bulls) for the fourth week in a row.  The 12.1 point drop this week was the biggest WoW decline since the week of 11/13, and the spread is also the lowest since that same week.

In other words, the AAII survey has taken a decisively negative tone partway through the second week of conflict with Iran.  Likewise, the same can be said for other surveys, such as the NAAIM Exposure Index and the Investors Intelligence survey.  The former showed active managers reporting as the least aggressively long since the final week of last April during the tariff-tantrum.  Meanwhile, bulls dropped below 50% in the Investors Intelligence survey for the first time since November.  Putting it all together, our Sentiment Composite is back to negative territory following over six months of positive readings.

As shown below, this week snapped a streak of 29 consecutive weeks of positive readings in the sentiment composite. With the streak over, it ends as the fifth-longest streak on record.