Futures on Friday suggest the S&P 500 SPX may pop its head through the 4,200 level again, looking to decisively break above the 400-point trading range in which it has twitched for nearly seven months.
We even have a fresh structural paradigm for bulls to feast on. Hopes for an AI bonanza have helped push the Nasdaq Composite COMP to its highest since August.But hold on. All this is all happening while people say they are downright miserable about the market. Even those who are active investors reflect sentiment at depressed levels.
As the chart below shows, investor sentiment, as measured by the spread between bulls and bears in the AAII data, is more than one standard deviation below its long-term average. “Extremes in pessimism in the AAII data are, on average, bullish for near-term stock market returns . When the bull-bear spread is around where it is now , we have seen the strongest S&P 500 returns three months and 12 months out, and the second strongest returns six months out,” says Smith.