Looking at the AAII Bullish, Neutral & Bearish Readings from 2009-Present

• John Lee
• September 2nd, 2010

The AAII does weekly sentiment surveys. You can find them here: http://www.aaii.com/sentimentsurvey. I’ve taken the extreme readings and plotted them onto the $SPY starting from January 2009-present.

The first chart consists of the lowest bullish readings and I chose all readings below 25%. Usually, when the reading hits the low 20′s, there is some sort of bottom coming or already in. The March 2009 reading was the lowest reading at 18.9%. We hit 20.7% last week, which was the lowest reading since the March 2009 bottom.

The next chart plots the highest neutral readings. I chose all readings above 30% because there aren’t any 40% readings. In 2009, there was only one reading at 30% or more. So far in 2010, we had 11 readings.

Finally, I plotted the highest bearish readings. Typically, these readings are synonymous with the lowest bullish readings, but not always. I chose all readings over 50%. Typically, they also marked some sort of bottom as well. We had the lowest bullish reading since the March 2009 low (the bearish reading was 70.2%), but the current bearish reading is ‘only’ 49.47%.

Finally, here is the data:

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