Direct Answer
The percentage of respondents in the weekly AAII survey who expect stock prices to rise over the next six months. It is one of three components of the survey, alongside neutral and bearish. A high bullish share indicates optimism among individual investors and is often read from a contrarian standpoint as a sign of crowded positioning.
AAII Bullish Sentiment: Formula, Meaning, Signals, Examples and How to Use It
How Is AAII Bullish Sentiment Calculated?
The percentage of respondents in the weekly AAII survey who expect stock prices to rise over the next six months. It is one of three components of the survey, alongside neutral and bearish.
Formula: Bullish % = bullish responses / total responses x 100
Inputs:
- Weekly AAII member survey responses
- Count of bullish, neutral and bearish votes
Worked example. If 351 of 900 survey responses are bullish, bullish sentiment is 39.0%. The inputs are illustrative numbers, not market data.
Reading it. A high bullish share indicates optimism among individual investors and is often read from a contrarian standpoint as a sign of crowded positioning. The long-run average bullish share is roughly 37 to 38 percent, which gives a reference for high and low readings.
Limits. The survey covers AAII members who choose to respond, and expectation is not the same as exposure. Sentiment can stay extreme for long periods in strong trends.
What is AAII Bullish Sentiment?
The percentage of respondents in the weekly AAII survey who expect stock prices to rise over the next six months. It is one of three components of the survey, alongside neutral and bearish.
How to use AAII Bullish Sentiment
A high bullish share indicates optimism among individual investors and is often read from a contrarian standpoint as a sign of crowded positioning. The long-run average bullish share is roughly 37 to 38 percent, which gives a reference for high and low readings. A reading alone is never a buy or sell signal; it needs context from price structure, volume, volatility and the broader market regime.
Strengths
- Counting the share expecting a rise over six months gives a plain participation figure that is easy to check against the weekly results.
- The series is long-running and published at fixed weekly intervals, so each reading lines up with a clean calendar of dates.
- Reproducible when the formula and data convention are fixed.
Weaknesses and limitations
- The question concerns a six-month expectation, so an answer may differ from how the respondent feels about the next week or month.
- The bullish share alone cannot distinguish a shift from bearish to bullish from one that came from neutral.
- Correlated indicators can create false confidence by repeating the same underlying information.
Editorial and risk note
This page is educational content, not individualized investment advice. It should not imply guaranteed prediction, accuracy or outperformance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is AAII Bullish Sentiment a buy or sell signal?
No. A high bullish share indicates optimism among individual investors and is often read from a contrarian standpoint as a sign of crowded positioning. The survey covers AAII members who choose to respond, and expectation is not the same as exposure. A trade built on it still needs a trigger, an invalidation rule, a position size and realistic execution assumptions.
What is the best setting for AAII Bullish Sentiment?
AAII Bullish Sentiment is computed from weekly AAII member survey responses; count of bullish, neutral and bearish votes, so the choices that matter are the data convention and the window it is read over. Test those across instruments, regimes and out-of-sample periods instead of fitting one historical winner.
Can AAII Bullish Sentiment be used by itself?
The survey covers AAII members who choose to respond, and expectation is not the same as exposure. Sentiment can stay extreme for long periods in strong trends. For that reason it is read next to measures of direction, participation, valuation, liquidity and risk, not alone.
Does AAII Bullish Sentiment work on every timeframe?
The calculation (Bullish % = bullish responses / total responses x 100) can be run on any bar size, but behavior is not portable: a reading on a five-minute chart describes a very different market window from the same reading on a daily chart. Validate the exact timeframe before relying on it.
Why does AAII Bullish Sentiment give false signals?
The question concerns a six-month expectation, so an answer may differ from how the respondent feels about the next week or month. The bullish share alone cannot distinguish a shift from bearish to bullish from one that came from neutral. Lag, noise and regime changes add to this, because market participants react to new information after the reading is calculated.
How should AAII Bullish Sentiment be backtested?
Rebuild AAII Bullish Sentiment from weekly AAII member survey responses using point-in-time data, write the rules before testing, include delisted securities where relevant, model realistic fills and costs, reserve a validation sample and compare with a simpler baseline.