Investors are becoming extremely bearish:
53.3% of individual investors expressed bearish sentiment over the next 6 months in the AAII survey for the week ending September 17th, the highest reading since May 2025.
Bearish sentiment has risen +15.7 percentage points over the last 2 weeks, the largest 2-week increase since March 2026.
Meanwhile, just 28.8% of individual investors were bullish over the same period, the lowest reading since September 2025.
As a result, the bull-bear spread is down to -24.5 percentage points, the widest gap since the first week of May 2025.
This is also comparable to readings seen during the March-April 2025 pullback and the 2022 bear market.
Are we setting up for a short squeeze?